Andaluz

I didn’t really mean to go back to Andaluz so soon.
Letitia Sprout and I paid a visit when the place first opened a year ago and, as I reported back then, young chef Brenton Pyke’s food was very good indeed.
I’d discovered Pyke cooking at a wine bar in Como. I can’t remember why I first went there but I do remember a single just-warm Coffin Bay oyster, a shot glass of silken sweetcorn veloute, crisp, creamy Blue Swimmer crab and fennel croquettes.
Having eaten Pyke’s careful, generous, perfectly balanced fare, I swore to follow him around for the rest of my life.
When he resurfaced at Andaluz, I was there in a flash.
It wasn’t just that the guy could cook. It was his consistency and attention to detail, plus something less definable. A love of his craft perhaps, or an innate modesty that allowed his food to do the shining.
My recent return visit proved what I always hoped would be the case.
The city’s best food is to be found not at some fine diner charging megabucks but in this dimly-lit burrow of a late night bar tucked away within the city’s corporate hub.
If it’s intimacy you’re after, grab your head torch and seek out one of the leather Chesterfields that nestle deep within the bar’s vault-like confines.
There, surrounded by too-dim lighting and swirly lampshades, one gets to eat food that makes you smile on the inside.
For Pyke has spent the last year wisely, refining and condensing his menu until every little thing he does is magic.
Own-made chicken and pork sausage is love on a plate. Fat, juicy, gamey and full-flavoured, it sits on a hearty braise of small green lentils finished with a hint of cream.
A duo of just-set scallops sits atop a peppery confit of pork cheek, in turn amid a swirl of PX reduction.
Desserts are by way of a tasting plate, perhaps featuring a superb lemon tart with candied orange and a slick of buttery lemon curd, or a fat, oozing chocolate fondant cake topped with clotted cream.
The booze list is at least as good as the food. Staff offer a winning blend of accomplished friendliness and accommodating happiness. Go soon.