Kathryn Flett reviews Coal Office, London: 'A whole bunch of plates of almost jewel-like pretty-somethings'

I was taking my former boss, the publishing legend Nick Logan, out for lunch. Admittedly he hasn’t been my boss for the past 23 years, but old habits die hard. Even if he can’t sack me (again; it’s testament to the resilience of our professional relationship that, after cooling our heels for three years, I returned to work for him in a ­different guise) I don’t particularly want to take Nick somewhere he’s going to hate – not least because he’s knowledgeable and passionate about food.

When I edited one of his magazines back in the mists of the early Nineties, the newly revamped Eagle, aka the World’s First Gastropub, on Farringdon Road, was right on our doorstep. An alternative work canteen was the Quality Chop House on the other side of the street.

When Nick suggested we include a food column in the magazine, it made sense to keep things local, so we enlisted the Eagle’s David Eyre (subsequently of Eyre Bros) to write it. When I left, I made the entirely pragmatic decision to take a job on a newspaper literally across the road and even closer to EC1’s two finest dining options.

Now it’s the best part of three decades later, and I live 70 miles from the Farringdon Road and lead a very different kind of life.

However, if/when I need either of them, it is heartening knowing that both the Eagle and the QCH are still doing their respective things just as beautifully as they ever did.  As I lit out for today’s destination, I couldn’t help but wonder if it could ever secure and sustain a similar degree of love and loyalty from its punters – and, given the capital’s current febrile restaurant ecosystem, in which a new opening might just have a shot at a five-year lifespan if it survives its first 30 months, could it ever last as long? 

It is a collaboration between the ­Israeli chef Assaf Granit, of The ­Barbary and The Palomar, and the designer Tom Dixon, whom I used to know a little when he was merely the West London-y ex-bass player from Funkapolitan who bypassed college in favour of welding stuff together to make furniture that was, arguably, even funkier. 

Thus, I’m reasonably well equipped to talk you through the interiors at Coal Office, an oddly skinny and slightly bent-in-the-middle brick edifice attached to Dixon’s new HQ overlooking Granary Square stuffed with gorgeous products you can almost certainly pop downstairs to the Dixon shop/s and, postprandially softened up, purchase.

I loved the bubbly “Melt” light fittings but was slightly less keen on the plump stools upon which one was forced to wriggle at the high tables by the windows – these affording, admittedly, a lovely view of Thomas Heatherwick’s soaring roofline at Coal Drops Yard. There are seats at the pass, too, while in the back of the restaurant, for those averse to scrambling, the tables and chairs are lower.

It all has immense character and muted glamour and so, despite the feeling of being on a particularly funky train – perhaps the intention, given the location – it all works. As for the food, well – that works, too. Indeed, it’s something pretty special, specifically a whole bunch of plates of almost jewel-like pretty-somethings. And these become yet more special on account of tasting utterly wow – yup, all of them. 

We ordered far too much, which then arrived so fast our table looked like whatever is the Hyde-Park-Corner-at-rush-hour of Jerusalem, so let me try to make sense of it.

We shared two wonderful breads: a sheeny glazed brioche with a hint of cholla (would that all bread had a hint of cholla, frankly) and an airy pretzel-on-a-stick. “Looks like an Anish Kapoor,” said Nick. Then, after more mouthfuls: “I’m already coming back.” (Phew! One box ticked).

A little saucepan of hot Parmesan-sodden polenta with asparagus and dash of truffle was chased by a kind of aubergine pizza, with the aubergine as the base, loaded with almonds and coriander, pomegranate seeds, green tahini and pistachios.

“Plate for the Brave”, meanwhile, is a series of blazing chilli-based dips, like a snack for the Three Kings, plus a beetroot and horseradish concoction that you can slather over everything.  We also had the very zingy shikshukit lamb and beef kebabs, while the appearance of the chicken livers called to mind a tiny Tracy Island set in the eastern Med and made of, er, food. Or, as Nick put it, “an ocean of mash ­lapping against the shores of the isle of liver”.

We had no room for dessert (which is as good an excuse to return as any) having been stuffed with plate after plate of never less than Instagramatically gorgeous stuff presented in a very pleasing environment, at a price (including one beer and a glass of wine) that seemed, if not exactly cheap, then certainly entirely reasonable, given not only the amount we put away but the thrilling quality of it all.

On the basis of this outing, then – and if chef Granit (who will surely steal Yotam Ottolenghi’s crown as London’s go-to-guy for Israeli/Levantine cooking) can be persuaded to stick around – I’d give Coal Office at least a five-year lifespan, which is easily 20 years in old money. And if our (many) plates had been cleared away a little faster (at one point I saw I had rested my elbow on a plate, after having lined a few more up along the window sill), I’d have given it five stars, too. 

@kateflett