Uzbek-a believe it! The new craze
Osh 14-15 Beauchamp Place, Knightsbridge, London SW3
IWASN’T exactly devastated to miss out on the ‘luxurious rare drinks’, served up in the Members’ Area of Osh, a new ‘Central Asian inspired’ restaurant in Beauchamp Place. This is Knightsbridge, after all, the favoured hangout of despots, dictators and tax dodgers, where the lights are always on, but there’s rarely anyone home. It’s a gilded ghost town, a Gulf states ghetto, a place where good taste comes to curl up and die. So the mink-lined margaritas, made with the barrel-aged tears of Pope Pius II, would just have to wait.
Knightsbridge is, like Kensington and Hampstead, one of those London boroughs whose decent restaurants are in inverse proportion to the cash of its inhabitants. Once upon a time there was Racine, one of London’s great French restaurants, and The Brompton Brasserie (later The Brompton Bar and Grill). They closed thanks to ever-increasing rents, and ever-decreasing actual residents. And before that came The Chicago Rib Shack, the original, rather than that pallid relaunch, an adored and sticky-fingered staple of my youth. Now though, there’s Zuma (good Japanese, dodgy crowd), Hawksmoor (ever-reliable charred flesh), Chisou (decent sushi), and, er, that’s about it.
So can Osh (which is a classic Uzbek lamb dish) with its psychedelic zebra wallpaper, and relentlessly pounding house music, and waiters in white shirts and braces, flush with the smell of newly minted cash, add anything to the Knightsbridge’s sparse culinary landscape? The menu is certainly intriguing. What I know about the food of Central Asia, more specifically Uzbekistan, could be scrawled on the back of a bilberry. But the traditional dishes here are very good indeed. Charred, puffy flat- breads and a tart, vibrant pickled cherry tomato salad that leaps and gambols across the tongue. The kitchen has even skinned the fruit, meaning the sharp, verdant, herby marinade sinks deep into the flesh. It is the taste of early summer. Just like a pert, punchy spicy ‘Cha’ cucumber salad.
There are surimi rolls, slowcooked rabbit, subtly spiced, stuffed into natural sausage casings and sweetened with soft, caramelised onions. A study in beige, the dish ain’t no looker but it sure tastes fine.
And so to osh, another slowcooked beauty and the eponymous star of the show. Lamb that has lived long enough to know a thing or two about flavour, great succulent lumps that fall apart at the mere mention of a fork, cooked for hours, with ‘lamb lard’ (tallow?), peppers, chickpeas and rice. It’s a version of pilaf, a dish fit for all manner of celebrations, and apparently best cooked in huge portions (up to 1,000 people, they say) in a cauldron over an open flame. I love the coriander seeds that stud the squishy, ovine-infused rice and the rich, faintly exotic spicing, and the big-bellied, spoon-fed generosity of the whole dish. I’d happily come back for this alone.
The only dud regional dish is the tomato carpaccio. I’m not sure quite how a Venetian raw beef dish can be described as ‘Uzbek’, but then what do I know? I don’t care where it comes from because it’s an underseasoned bore – dull, pappy tomatoes sitting on a cushion of goat’s cheese. With a fistful of pomegranate seeds thrown on top. I hate goat’s cheese, but that’s not the point. To add insult to injury, it comes in at a shade under £9. Overpriced and underwhelming.
Just like the seabass sashimi. Which I suppose is on the menu because this is Knightsbridge. And that’s the law around here. It looks pretty enough, scattered with tobiko and micro-herbs. But the fish lacks the pristine purity of the truly fresh. It is a Sunday night, but still. If you pay £14.20 (20? What’s that about?), you expect a decent piece of bass. Worse still, the end of one piece is chewy and dried-up, something that happens when fish is kept out of the fridge too long. I take a photograph of the offending flesh, and it don’t look pretty.
Then black cod, another of those dishes that Knightsbridge law demands. The original, at Nobu, is a classic, as rich as a Baku tycoon, swooning apart in thick, luscious flakes. Here, though, it’s another thumping bore. It lacks character, depth and that essential miso sweetness. And there’s barely a whisper of cumin and paprika marinade. It’s not outright bad, merely deeply average. But at £35.50 it’s grossly overpriced.
Osh is strong on its classical regional dishes. Interesting, skilled cooking, stuff you really want to eat. But venture off the welltrodden path and the usual high-priced Knightsbridge mediocrity awaits. About £50 per head