Restaurants

By Charmaine Mok

There is one lasting impression of St Clements, and that’s the aura of calm, sophisticated put-togetherness. Proprietor Olivia Cundy is the sort of lady who exudes the elegance of Coco Chanel crossed with a ballerina – even while clearing away plates. Her café, with its high ceilings and posh-rustic elements (tattered cookery books and novels on the shelves, a vintage Bush stereo, plush pastel armchairs mingling with wooden tables) is spacious, yet welcoming.

The menu, too, lists dishes which are each a perfectly arranged composition of colours, flavours and textures. Our English golden and red beetroot salad with ripe vine tomatoes, peppery rocket and pumpkin seeds was a burst of sunshine. Equally, juicy grilled Yorkshire lamb burgers (a perfect pink medium instead of overcooked and dry) with a coarse, ludicrously good houmous and creamy, refreshing tzatziki was faultless, if a little difficult to eat without cutlery at hand. Lastly, that horrid fridge-cold canteen staple, a tuna niçoise salad (here made with rare-cooked yellowfin tuna) was done here with such aplomb we remembered why we came to love the dish in the first place.

For such good ingredients (seasonal, and sourced from Italy and France as well as locally), you’d expect to pay a lot more. We hope St Clements manages to stay poised as its popularity grows.

Time Out London Issue 2034: August 13-19 2009