Restaurants

James Pembroke

The Polish Hearth Club (Ognisko Polskie) was opened 80 years ago, after the Russo-german invasion of Poland. Inaugurated by the late Duke of Kent, it was the unofficial home of the Polish government-in-exile right up until independence in 1989. On the walls above the bar, there are hauntingly sad portraits of heroic generals Anders, Sosnkowski, Sikorski and Komorowski, who led the Warsaw uprising. Fittingly, it has now come under the wing of London’s great Polish restaurateur Jan Woroniecki, whose father Kristof fought for the free Polish forces during the war. I enjoyed my first (and best) blinis at Wodka, which he opened in 1989, followed by Chez Kristof and Baltic which is still going strong in Southwark. My wife, Josephine, and I need no excuse to return to Ognisko – not just because Jan is now running things, but because it was behind how we met 27 years ago. I was then working at City Limits,

Time Out’s far-left stepsister magazine. In those pre-internet days, the magazine derived substantial revenue from the 200-odd lonely-hearts advertisers at the back of the mag. What the ads lacked in dignity, they made up for in versatility: ‘Scene gay searching for straight-acting gay’; ‘Anyone for a threesome in Peckham?’ etc. I met up with PR genius Mark Borkowski, who had the brilliant idea of inviting all these desperate deviants to a lonely-hearts-club ball at the Polish Hearth Club. With the exception of the five separatist lesbians, who would not speak to men, the magazine staff were thrilled with the idea. We agreed we just needed someone to host it, when the non-separatist lesbian ad sales manager cooed, ‘What about her? She’s gorgeous,’ and pointed at a publicity photo of Josephine and her band, Pussies Galore. The earth stopped rotating when she strode into the office the next day. Take your innamorati there this winter; drink too much vodka, share plates of their potato pancakes (placki), and don’t miss out on the blinis.

If Josephine has one failing, it is an overoptimistic confidence in her love of fish. She simply will not concede that she hates anything with gills. Yet show her a menu and she always chooses the least appealing fish dish on the menu, which, having taken half a bite, she swaps for my main course which I have selected after an afternoon on the restaurant’s website. So it was with some relief that she couldn’t join me on my recent northern progress for the Talking Pictures TV convention, at the art-deco Plaza Cinema, Stockport.

First stop the Haughmond Inn, just outside Shrewsbury, which was revitalised by uberchef Martin Board five years ago. Don’t let the website or pine-fresh décor put you off: this is the most imaginative food I have enjoyed outside London for years. If not ever. And it’s a bargain: £18 for two courses – pigeon breasts followed by cod with lentils – albeit £1 extra for a packet of smoked-pheasant crisps. My token northern friends were thrilled, and decided it would ‘put all the smarty-pants restaurants in London to shame’. I say: let them have their moment. Given they were back on the turnip soup by nightfall.

Ognisko, 55 Princes Gate, Exhibition Road, London SW7 2PG; tel: 020 7589 0101; www.ogniskorestaurant.co.uk; 3-course lunch £22

The Haughmond, Upton Magna, Shropshire SY4 4TZ; tel: 01743 709918; www.thehaughmond.co.uk; 3-course set lunch: £23