January blues? Try this for a pick-me-up
Kathryn Flett can go a little longer without a winter holiday after visiting Covent Garden
On a dreich Tuesday lunchtime in January, I dreamt of being in hot places never previously visited: however, inevitably, In Real Life a compromise was called for. Thus, as the drizzle descended from clouds suspended roughly 30ft above the rooftops, I decided my taste buds needed to be transported the best part of 5,000 miles, to Goa; or maybe 5,500 miles in the opposite direction, to Brazil – or, indeed, another 5,000 downwards, to Mozambique, via new Portugueseplus restaurant, Volta do Mar. Aw, c’mon – it’s not that big an ask.
Volta is situated in an airy, woody, pale, banquette-rimmed room with walls full of splashy paintings in a double-fronted townhouse on Tavistock Street, Covent Garden, slap-bang opposite Café Murano and just around the corner from The Delaunay, in a part of town that is not exactly deprived of pleasant places to either grab a quick bite or linger longer.
I applaud the bravery of any restaurateur choosing to pile into London at the tail-end of 2019; it was just before Christmas when Mark Hix closed Hix Soho after 10 years, citing “rising rents and difficult market conditions. We aren’t able to find a way to carry on, a growing problem for restaurateurs across London.”
Tough times for the industry. However, arriving at Volta I felt entirely optimistic. Portugal does excellent beaches and cities, football and wine, and produces half the world’s cork while it’s at it, but as far as I’m concerned the very best thing about it is that having purloined so many ingredients from practically everywhere else in the world, it punches ludicrously far above its weight, with arguably the most thrillingly diverse food to be found anywhere in Europe.
Volta do Mar, which opened in November, is the baby of husbandand-wife team Simon Mullins (who founded the Salt Yard group of restau
SET LUNCH FOR TWO rants) and his Portuguese-born wife, Isabel Almeida Da Silva. As Volto also has a Portuguese chef whose CV includes Sexy Fish, Zuma and The Fat Duck, expecting my visit to turn into a proper long-haul lunch was barely an ask at all.
Mind you, there was a subtext. I hoped that something funkily Portuguese would assist my cold-addled sinuses and taste buds to kick-start themselves. (A soup I made the other day might just as well have been lightly braised earthworms and bobbins-fromthe-bottom-of-the-dishwasher in sour milk with cotton-wool croutons, even if everybody else at the table nomnommed their way through it cheerfully enough. Perhaps the novelty blindfolds helped?)
There’s just so much foodstuff to play with in Portugal; home-cooked staples include cozida – the stew that, whether culled from sea, sky or soil, appears to contain everything conceivably available within a few miles’ radius of the stove, possibly even earthworms. As indeed will a properly nose-to-tail feijoada, which is effectively more of the above but with extra beans. The broad brushstroke bacalhau, meanwhile, pretty much covers 1,000 different ways with salt cod, while if you want to steer clear of meat/fish you’ll not be disadvantaged by the trad veggie soup, caldo verde. Unlike so much of continental Europe, in Portugal you can pull off a pretty effortless Veganuary, though if you’re merely cutting down on protein the ideal solution is probably an açorda alentejana, the basic version of which comprises squidged bread, water, olive oil, eggs, salt and coriander and is neither a soup nor a stew but a hearty Stewp™ – literally perfect for January.
My lunch date was a Birthday Boy, so we pushed out the boat and ordered a carafe of Castrus vinho verde, which was as “dry” as my invariably soggy January ever gets. There was a temptingly perky menu of small plates, as well as a vegan pumpkin and coconut relish and a beetroot na brasa (on the grill) plus charcuterie and “snacks”. This being the month of expanded waistlines and fiscal belt-tightening, though, we opted for the well-priced set (also available as a pre-theatre menu): £19 for three courses, £24 for four.
And, oh! My half-dozen melt-in-themouth fried cornmeal chunks with their luscious, ruby-red masala, chased by a salt cod and chickpea salad that was as piquant as it was pretty, followed by a comfortably curry-soused chicken thigh and drumstick with a fragrant rice, rounded off with fluffy farófias in a Mediterranean creme anglaise – Portugal’s spicier version of îles flottantes – were very, very good. Meanwhile, opposite, the Birthday Boy (53, if you’re asking) pronounced his sardine pâte with sourdough, caldo verde with iberico chourico, Brazilian moqueca (spicy fish stew with coconut) and a pud of poached pear with cashew yogurt “properly very delicious – much, much better than ‘good’.”
Plates are generous, and while I didn’t really have any room I was so excited by the fact I could actually taste food again that I somehow managed to shoehorn in an entirely uncalled-for wheel of Azeitão cheese, which came with several pieces of toast (crackers would have been preferable) which I ignored, instead vacuuming up the melting salty-deliciousness like a woman who’d just escaped from a jail in which all her important senses (taste and smell) had been cruelly removed.
In short, this was the best January pick-me-up lunch I can recall that didn’t involve then falling asleep on a sunlounger: very highly recommended, even for those with spickand-span sinuses.
13-15 Tavistock St, London WC2E 7PS: 020 3034 0028; voltadomar. co.uk