TAKEAWAYS

WITH RESTAURANT DOORS CLOSED, TOP CHEFS ARE MAKING THEIR DISHES AVAILABLE TO ENJOY AT HOME

Delicately shredded greens. Salad leaves the colour of plums. A fried egg whose just-set amber yolk matches the edible flowers scattered around it. This is without a doubt the prettiest dish I’ve ever seen in a takeaway container. And so it should be — it’s from Ollie Dabbous’s Michelin-starred Mayfair restaurant, Hide. Like many of his contemporaries, the chef has had to adapt to these strange times. In the capital, fine dining restaurants such as Hakkasan (Chinese), Benares (Indian) and Coya (Peruvian) have begun offering deliveries — many via Supper, a high-end answer to Deliveroo. Some allnew takeaway brands have sprung up too, including Hot 4 U, whose changing set menu comes from Cub head chef Matthew Scott, and Eddy Tejada, formerly of St John and Silo.

I order two mains from Hide; at £38 each, this is very much a special-occasion takeaway.

The first, hidden under that beautiful garnish, is wagyu meatloaf. It’s rich and peppery, the egg yolk and lightly dressed salad cutting through perfectly — although I find the texture disconcertingly soft. The side of potato cake is a crispy, layered work of genius, while the other main of white miso-glazed salmon is salty-sweet and beautifully caramelised.

My second order is more traditional takeaway fare, although taken up a level by James Cochran. He’s streamlined the offering of his Islington restaurant, 12:51, to create a new fried chicken delivery brand called Around the Cluck. The veggie main, a cauliflower burger, arrives slightly soggy but is topped with a moreish, tangy pickle. The chook’s the thing, though, as the buttermilk chicken burger proves; juicy thigh meat in crunchy batter, piled high with American cheese, crispy bacon, scotch bonnet jam and lettuce. As someone with no prior affection for fried chicken, I now get it.

However, the takeaway I’d order again and again comes from chef Oded Oren, whose Israeli-middle Eastern fusion cooking has garnered fans including Jay Rayner. I pick up a spread of sharing plates from his Dalston restaurant Oren, and from the simple sides, such as fluffy challah bread, crushed tomatoes in olive oil, and creamy balls of labneh topped with za’atar, to the more complex dishes (delicate fish koftas in a spiced, traffic light-red Libyan chraime sauce) everything is spot on. It’s food that sings of sunshine, and while I’d have loved to enjoy it in the cool surrounds of Oren, a picnic blanket in the park isn’t a bad place to be instead. Hide: mains £16-38 each. Oren: selection of sharing dishes around £16.50 per person. Around the Cluck: burger and side dish around £13.50 per person. Nicola Trup

LONDON •

HIDE.CO.UK 1251.CO.UK ORENLONDON.COM