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Please note, North Road has now closed. Time Out Food editors, February 2019.
The subdued surroundings – parquet floor, palette of low-key mushroom colours, subtle line drawings and gently flickering tea lights – do little to prepare diners for the excitement on the plate at North Road. Oversize and rather beautiful bare light bulbs add a playful note, which is carried through to the dishes: amuse-bouche of light-as-air pork scratchings, salty quail eggs nestled in hay, new potatoes stuffed with bakskuld (smoked fish) mayo in a pot lined with thyme. Mini bread rolls come in a small hessian bag, accompanied by caramelised and buttermilk butters. All delightful so far, as was a starter of scallops with sea buckthorn, buttermilk and strips of carrot.
The dairy and sea combo continued – successfully – into a main of Cornish monkfish (and more bakskuld) with sea vegetables and seaweed butter. Less pleasing was Norfolk venison and smoked bone marrow (coated in ash) with beetroot and wild sorrel: a taste sensation too far, as the ash flavour dominated.
Overall, there’s much to be admired – particularly the commitment to British ingredients (many of them foraged) – and it’s a treat to try such unfamiliar dishes. A note of caution for the lactose-intolerant: many dishes, and every dessert, contain milk. We devoured ‘brunsviger’ sponge and milk ice-cream: a divine, caramelised concoction. Unlike the Anglo-Danish menu, the wine list roams the globe; service is charm itself, though so heavily accented that we struggled to understand. Note that co-founder and chef Christoffer Hruskova left the business in summer 2012.