Jimi Famurewa reviews Top Cuvée: The future looks bright for hip Highbury newcomer

Ambience: 4/5 stars

Food: 4/5 stars

After the co-founder of Top Cuvée, Brodie Meah, had led me through the squashed-in din of a lively, Negroni-loosened Wednesday night crowd, directed me to a little wooden table and handed over some mismatched, pastel-coloured menus, he apologised. ‘Sorry about how bright it is,’ he said, as I blinked and took in what looked to me like a very regularly illuminated room. ‘There’s a problem with the dimmer switch.’

Now, if you know London and you know restaurants, then the details above, coupled with this thwarted quest for atmospheric gloom, may prove instructive about this new bistro and wine bar in Highbury. You will probably be able to conjure the small glass box of a room, the highly shazammable, indie-leaning soundtrack on the stereo and the natural wines, craft beers and croquettes on the shareable menu.

I say this not to eyeroll tiresomely but merely to convey that Top Cuvée — the brainchild of Meah (former drinks head at Dinner in Melbourne), head chef Dan Miller (ex Naughty Piglets) and Max and Noel Venning (Three Sheets bar) — deals in a relaxed culinary hipness that plenty of us will recognise. What makes Top Cuvée such a joy, though, is how it brings a new energy, a flavourful wallop and a playfulness to this recognisable formula. It is the sort of instant neighbourhood hit that makes you feel pronounced, irrational envy if you do not happen to live 10 minutes away.

Which is not to say that there weren’t a couple of slight disappointments during a fairly thorough dinner with my two older brothers. Chiefly, a gelatinous piece of Cornish cod with oyster emulsion, grassy fronds of monk’s beard and nori powder (a bit parsimonious and textureless). And lumps of braised pig cheek with smoked celeriac and a puddle of herbless, peanut butter-ish ‘hazelnut pesto’ (with not quite enough meaty savouriness to stand up to those powerfully sweet sides).

But everything else? Properly, blissfully good. Sweet potato, blue cheese and sage croquettes had pungent, yielding centres with a touch of Mexican queso to them. Cornish cockles brought a fistful of gaping shells bearing tender, steamed meat and a marbled mix of sour ‘ajo blanco’ and crimson ’nduja oil just made for bread dunking. House terrine was studded with lots of pistachio and turbocharged by the electric, briny tang of pickled gherkins. Similarly, a fantastically sloppy burrata and roasted hook of pumpkin lay beneath a coarse dukkah pushed to the very limit of its salty, spiced smokiness. Baked beetroot — gorgeously warm and backed by frizzled capers, radicchio, a beautiful, sharp uppercut of a vinaigrette and the hi-def greenery of cime di rapa — cemented the theme of Miller’s dynamic way with voguish vegetables. ‘That dressing,’ muttered my eldest brother, Folarin, as the three of us dragged the tines of our forks across a long-empty plate.

Simple desserts can be a sign of a kitchen that finds puddings faffy or tiresome. But here — in the form of a glossy wedge of torte-like chocolate cake and a skilled, nicely eggy crème caramel — that, happily, did not prove to be true. Throughout, I stuck to a gratis, off-menu house lemonade but my brothers sniffed and sipped at interesting reds. And then, as the place emptied out, Meah delivered what felt like an almost criminally low bill, along with a sticker bearing Top Cuvée’s larky, bubble-font logo. It was a final, grin-widening garnish on a dinner that transmuted cool Parisian caves à manger references into something that felt warm and generous and inclusive. They may have that dimmer switch fixed by now, but the future looks bright.

Top Cuvée

1 Olives £2.50

2 Croquettes £5

1 House terrine £7

1 Burrata £8

1 Beetroot £11

1 Cod £13

2 Pig cheeks £26

1 Bread and butter £1.50

1 Cockles £9

1 Chocolate tart £6

1 Crème caramel £6

2 Glasses of Monteforche Lo Sfuso £12

1 Glass of Koerner La Corse £9

1 Glass of Barbara Ohlzelt GV £6

Total £122

Top Cuvée, 177B Blackstock Road, London, N5 2LL