(ad – pr) I have a surprisingly small range of favourite places to eat in London. For a city so blessed with restaurants, markets and street food I seldom have the opportunity to indulge in a meal. If I’m there for judging with The Great Taste Awards then a large meal is generally furthest from my mind by the end of the day and if I’m there with family then fancy food is generally a touch out of reach. Recently though I found myself on the way to London to catch up with my oldest friend – back in the UK briefly from his life developing a show in LA for HBO of course – with no lunch plans. I reached out to a PR friend of mine and she duly delivered a table for 2 at Jeru Mayfair, not one I was familiar with but I trust her judgement entirely so relayed the appropriate info and before I knew it was lowering the tone of the Mayfair streets.
On the walk to the restaurant my eye was caught by a line of Ferraris and Lamborghinis with a combined value of well into 7 figures, each the proud recipient of a parking ticket like a badge of honour that I suspect didn’t worry the over-privileged owners but raised a cynical chuckle from me. Thankfully that rather ostentatious display was left outside when I reached the restaurant which had a much more understated exterior than one might expect from the locale. The interior is dominated by an open kitchen and large bar with subtle lighting and plenty of foliage to take off the harder edges, it also features a number of dry-ageing cabinets that are practical as well as decorative. The lunch menu comes in at a remarkably reasonable £29 per person, admittedly caveated that you need to work through it in an hour but given the financial possibilities offered by the a la carte menu and the location that’s quite a shockingly accessible price point.
With a glass of sparkling wine swiftly deposited at the table, we were up and running, waiting for our first course to appear, which it duly did in the form of potato bread accompanied by truffle honey and seaweed butter. Freshly baked and savoury without being too dense and the perfect vessel for those condiments, the truffle honey wearing its positive features particularly well. Alongside this we were served a hummus topped with herbs, mushrooms, a sharp kick of pickled chilli and small chunks of aubergine throughout. Comfortably the best hummus I’ve eaten, taking the concept far beyond any other execution of this old standard and perfect for smearing onto the potato bread. A fresh plate of salad with sharp citrus dressing punctuated proceedings before one of Jeru Mayfair signature plates arrived: halloumi donuts. Any worries I had about these being as rubbery and improbably dense as those found in your average chain-pub melted as quickly as my first bite, light and generously seasoned with more of that truffle honey and goats curd these are quite unique and delicious, an essential order if you visit.
A generous chunk of stone bass on a bed of those pickled chillies came next, complete with muslin wrapped lemon, as well as baked aubergine with a sweet, molasses like drizzle and a spiced lentil topping. Crispy potatoes on the side finished the main section of the meal and this trio did so in fine style. The aubergine was soft and paired delightfully with the lentils, the fish flaking perfectly and the potatoes crisp but fluffy inside making a superb conclusion to the meal. We finished on a sweet note with baklava, also the best execution of this dish that I can recall.
Mayfair is not really an area of London that I’m financially equipped to frequent and it was an unusual confluence of circumstances that led to my dining there. We went a bit beyond the £29 lunch menu but it would never have occurred to me that such an accessibly priced meal would be found adjacent to such ostentatious displays of wealth. I’d assumed that anything in this neighbourhood would be beyond my financial means but not only was this extremely competitively priced but without any compromise, there may not have been any meat in the menu but that’s only something I realised in retrospect. If you’re in the market for a competitively priced and top quality meal amongst the more financially well endowed then this is the place for you.
