London and Londoners are split keenly and most obviously by the river Thames into north and south.
But for all of us who favour north London, home to the rail station where my and Jancis’s trains from the north of England first delivered us many years ago, must admit one undeniable fact: the restaurants in north London have never been as exciting as those in the rest of the capital.
Why this is, nobody has successfully managed to explain to me. Rents are said to be too high, or ‘the buildings are not suitable’; its proximity and easy access to central London is another opinion advanced. While north London does seem to have more than its fair share of relaxed cafes, restaurants with very good food, excellent wines and friendly service have been as rare as hen’s teeth for as long as I have lived here – almost 50 years.
Then, in the unlikeliest of locations on the high street in Kentish Town, owned by someone with no previous background in restaurants, there landed six weeks ago The Parakeet, where every effort has been made to ensure that what is inside the front door matches what is on the outside.
Formerly known as the Oxford Tavern, this pub and restaurant occupy a prominent corner site on Kentish Town Road and Islip Streets. At the viewing for purchase, its eventual buyers, Riz Shaikh and his partner Steve Ball, saw its potential and also the loving care it required. ‘The whole building was tired. The whole brand was damaged and needed a new lease of life’, Shaikh explained. The new name was inspired by the many parakeets that now make their home on nearby Hampstead Heath.
Shaikh also explained that two things persuaded him to buy: he lives close by, and when he first looked out of the window of the private dining room on the first floor, he spotted his eight-year-old son in the school playground next door.
He and Ball’s company, The Columbo Group, bought the building at the end of 2022, their first venture into the combination of pub and restaurant, although for almost 20 years they have managed music and entertainment venues. Their first was The Old Queens Head in Islington, and they have gone on to run another 10 venues including four Blues Kitchens and the Jazz Café in Camden Town, offering a heady mixture of music, events, and drinks and food good enough to generate plenty of dance activity.
The final piece in this jigsaw came about via the friendship that developed between Shaikh and chef Ben Allen (see below with Jancis), a friendship that arose from the fact that Allen’s father, the well-known tailor Charlie Allen, made Shaikh’s first suit when he was 26. Ben Allen was, and remains, a highly talented chef and together with his sous chef, Ed Jennings, had been cooking at Brat in Hackney before heading up the kitchen at The Parakeet.
Little remains of the original Oxford Tavern, other than the wooden floor and a few patches of brickwork dotted around the interior. But thanks to Ball and Shaikh’s policy of sourcing original and reworked fixtures and fittings from wherever – ‘it’s amazing what you can find on eBay’ says Shaikh – the interior manages to give the impression of a venerable past. (There is a lovely, somewhat distressed old clock on the wall of the first floor courtesy of a French railway station).
The pub is at the front and occupies about two thirds of the depth of the building. It is light and extremely comfortable – sofas et al – and serves a daily lunch of a bowl of soup and a sandwich for £7. At lunchtime on the day I visited there was the usual mix of customers: some at their laptops; others reading; and a few seeking inspiration from their pints of beer.
The restaurant, which seats about 60, is at the back. It too has been comfortably refurbished with clever use made of leather banquettes. Behind a large arched opening to the left of some panelling on the far wall is the kitchen with a complicated and expensive but very effective extract overhead. Here too, as at Brat, the emphasis is very much on cooking over open fire to give maximum flavour to the well-selected seasonal ingredients. There are a number of smiling faces in the kitchen, always a good sign, although there is only one exit for all the food. This will change, as they plan to remove the seats directly opposite the kitchen in the near future.
The only menu is on a large blackboard on the wall which gives rise to almost every customer approaching it, taking a photo on their iPhone, and retreating to their table – where they find plenty to digest.
This is partly because the menu is copious but also because it is sparely written. There are the customary ‘snacks’: olives, potato bread with smoked butter and, not to be missed, spider-crab croquettes. Then there are five first courses and half a dozen main courses with the plus sign much used.
We began with an extremely luscious dish of prawn tartare with chilli (for spice) and rhubarb (for acidity) topped with two prawn heads – a dish that recalled the red prawns of Palamós on the Costa Brava. With this we enjoyed braised leeks with a thick pecorino sauce and a dish of asparagus topped with diced almonds and finely chopped nettles.
The main courses are offered as sharing dishes although I am not sure why. We ordered two for the four of us: steak and onions (£30 and shown below) and trout and sea herbs with a butter sauce (£23). Both were excellent but it was the quality of the saucing that was most impressive: both sauces were rich, coating the whole mouth but with a bite at the end.
We finished by sharing a doused kouign amann, the Breton pastry, from the excellent Kossoffs bakery on the other side of Kentish Town Road, and an even sweeter slice of a chocolate torte. With a bottle of excellent 2019 Chenin Blanc from Illimis in Elgin, South Africa, for £47 I paid a very reasonable bill of £213.47 for four including service.
Their wine list is exciting and keenly priced. The whites are from all over the world, and include a 2021 Grüner Veltliner from Loimer (£39), a 2020 white burgundy from Jane Eyre (£60), a 2022 Grosset Riesling from Clare Valley (£53), a 2013 Riesling Cuvée Frédéric Émile a steal at £70, and a 2019 Kistler Chardonnay from California (at £150, their most expensive white). There are six red wines from California on the list, including a 2019 Ridge Cabernet Sauvignon (£95), plus a 2020 Rosso di Montalcino from Sesti (£55), a 2020 Xinomavro from Dalamara in Naoussa (£47.50) and a 2019 Blaufränkisch from Judith Beck in Austria (£39).
Two days after our dinner I returned to the Parakeet to chat with Shaikh and interrupted him in the middle of a wine tasting with Nekter Wines, a weekly occurrence, he explained, that benefits everybody: the kitchen, the staff and the customers.
He explained that what inspired him was the opportunity to give something back to his own bit of north London as well as to work with Ben Allen. ‘I believe Ben’s food is very impressive. They are a young brigade and I think that it is his saucing which is most impressive. I like my food and wine to be flavourful, which is why I like Ben’s cooking and California wines. I love this area and I believe that we understand it and that has contributed to the overall design as well as the friendliness of the service.
‘As to the challenges, I believe that the main one is common to all restaurateurs at the moment, and that is how we manage to keep prices affordable when the cost of everything is increasing almost daily and wages are stagnant. I think it is terribly important not to be greedy. Once we have established a large number of regular customers, I will be happy. And then there is the particular challenge of how we deal with the closure of Kentish Town tube station [next door] which will close for at least a year from the end of June.
‘I also believe that recruitment, which was very difficult when we opened here, particularly in the kitchen, was a reflection of how out-of-kilter the whole process had become. We need to generate more exciting opportunities for our staff, such as the weekly wine tasting which you so rudely interrupted’, he said with a smile. ‘We have to ensure that the staff have the right work/life balance. I would like everybody who comes into The Parakeet to leave with great feelings, whether they are our customers or our team.’
The Parakeet 256 Kentish Town Rd, London NW5 2AA; tel: +44 (0)20 4599 6302
Kossoffs 259 Kentish Town Rd, London NW5 2JT; tel: +44 (0)20 7424 9799
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