Westerns Laundry
Highbury, London
From the team behind Primeur and Jolene comes a repurposed laundry within a full-throated roar of Arsenal's Emirates Stadium. An expansive courtyard area with an olive tree and a serviceable veranda makes for pleasant outdoor eating, while the dining room itself – reached through retractable doors – is a welcome change from the brutal, wooden East London norm (note the yellow velour seating). Indeed, the evening scene is lit with the glow of candles. Dishes are written up on the blackboard, with a range of Spanish-influenced smaller plates leading the charge. A version of ajo blanco with kohlrabi and cucumber is refreshing to the palate and the imagination, while baked cuttlefish could be the star of an aïoli-dressed pasta offering. Seafood is very much the point, furnishing smoked eel with hispi and horseradish, and providing substantial mains such as hake or monkfish with robust accompaniments – mussels and lentils for the former, chestnut pipérade for the latter. Forcefully dressed salads and sides such as sweet and (not so) sour courgettes with olives and pine nuts fill in the details, while dessert could be apple pie with Calvados custard or rum baba for sharing. Wines are a reasonable selection of vibrant varietals, but bottle mark-ups tend to the severe.
