What does a chef with two Michelin stars do, especially if they don’t want a third one? Simple. Go back to basics and open a neighbourhood restaurant, albeit in the rarefied locale of Chelsea. Of course, it helps if you’re Phil Howard. Within a year of Elystan Street opening in 2016, it had become one of the hottest tickets and gained a mere single star from the Michelin inspectors. The venue’s held it ever since and based on your reviewer’s recent visit, it is fully deserved.
Located just off the Fulham Road and two blocks parallel to Sloane Avenue, it would be perfectly possible to miss Elystan Street. The eponymous restaurant sits halfway down, and so diners really have to want to go here. It’s not the sort of venue that’s going to attract spontaneous, passing trade. This all deliberate. Co-owner Rebecca Mascarenhas has often lamented London’s lack of ‘restaurants du quartier’ that appear across Paris. Why travel into the centre of town for top food if you can go somewhere perfectly good close to your home? It sounds totally logical, but in London, is surprisingly rare. To make it work is even harder.
Elystan Street combines the nothing-is-too-much-trouble of top Michelin spots with the informality of a next-door venue. Take charismatic staff and a relaxed vibe and you have a winning formula. There are no starched tablecloths at Elystan and no waiters appearing surreptitiously at diners’ shoulders to anticipate their every need. Equally, there is no exposed brickwork and piping, no urban beats. It’s a grown-up place for grown-ups for sure, but none the worse for it. The venue is full of light, large and spacious, where guests can talk comfortably and not feel cramped. We appreciated the perfect table we had been given for people watching and my high-heeled dining comrade was delighted by the thoughtfulness of the venue in not locating its toilets down a flight of treacherous stairs – and all too common London occurrence.
Onto the food and the Elystan team have adopted much of the playbook from the Square. Keep it simple, in other words, but classy. There are some Phil Howard hallmarks – a pasta dish on the tasting menu and a deftly executed double cheese souffle – but also some very Mediterranean nods too. This is a chef having fun, without the constraint of too elevated expectations. It reminded us of what Jakob Mielcke and Jan Hurtigkarl (a pair of famous Danish chefs) are doing with their venue in Copenhagen.
Back in balmy London – 15 degrees in early March – we coursed through a six-dish tasting menu at Elystan Street. A la carte options are also available. Cashew nut hummus with roasted vegetables (which appeared as item two on both the omnivorous and vegetarian flight) was a masterclass in how a basic ingredient – such as a nut, when puréed – can gain delicacy and sophistication in talented hands. A fillet of Cornish seabass was perhaps not the most stunning visual dish in the lineup, but what it lost in presentation, it gained in taste. Just utterly delicious would be a fitting descriptor, with the fish enhanced by new season asparagus – my first of the year – and a fluffy crushing of Charlotte potatoes. Pictured short rib beef was also excellent, and my vegetarian comrade felt much better looked after at Elystan Street with her offerings than at many more starred and pricier venues (step forward Claude Bossi…). We also were delighted with our wine pairings, which included a top Albarino and the second red from esteemed Bordeaux estate Leoville-Poyferre.
Even if Chelsea is not your reviewer’s neighbourhood per se and necessitates around 30 minutes in an Uber from his house, there is no doubt that a return visit will be in order.