JAMES COCHRAN EC3

19 Bevis Marks, EC3; jcochran.restaurant

We’re told, at James Cochran EC3, that dishes can arrive in any order, but still there’s an element of theatre that the fried chicken comes last — like the new band leaving their hit for the encore.

To be precise, we are waiting for the Jamaican jerk buttermilk chicken with a couple of dots of scotch bonnet jam and coriander. This is a breathlessly hyped dish — “the best fried chicken,” wrote Fay Maschler in the Evening Standard

— and it’s hard to believe that anyone who comes to this odd spot in Aldgate, in the City of London, doesn’t order it.

Long before the chicken shows, though, Cochran serves notice of his truly, properly remarkable talent. It’s hard not to make him more enigmatic than he probably is, but biographic details are sparse: his heritage is Jamaican-Scottish, apparently, and he’s worked mainly at The Ledbury, which has two Michelin stars, and the Harwood Arms, a fancy gastro-pub. He opened James Cochran EC3 after signing up with a service called Appear Here that connects entrepreneurs with empty shops — hence the fact he’s ended up in an incongruous, so-uncool-it’sstill-not-cool district. The food really is faultless, though somewhat light on vegetables and almost Atkins extremist in the avoidance of carbs.

And the chicken? It’s crunchy, salty, maizey, dreamy — you’d have to live a very long way away for this to not be worth the journey.

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WHAT TO EAT: (Apart from the fried chicken) smoked salmon dice treacle-cured and served with whisky and apple jelly and cod’s roe.

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WHAT TO DRINK: JC’s Zombie Mix, featuring house-infused Angostura dark rum, absinthe, grapefruit juice, cinnamon gomme and much more.