“We got the cows before we got the restaurant,” Stevie Parle says of Town, his new venue on Drury Lane. “So we had to do it.”
Town opened in May, immediately catching the food world’s attention for scene-stealing interiors by North End Design (Gymkhana, Ambassadors Clubhouse). Like the food here, the aesthetics are hard to label. Mood boards for the venue feature references ranging from the French Communist Party headquarters, designed by Brazilian architect Oscar Niemeyer in the 1960s and fully finished in 1980, to the early Apple logo.
The result is a textured dining room awash in sumptuous primary colours. Surfaces curve and undulate, and the thoughtfully designed dining room matches the attention to detail on each plate. Rich burgundy pillars, a statement yellow table and the eye-catching green pass are clad in lava stone, then given a colourful enamel wash, similar to the coating of Le Creuset pans. A hefty sapele timber bar dominates one side of the room, while the coffered ceiling weaves in a retro-futuristic element. “It took a lot, and it took ages,” says Parle, laughing.
Produce has always steered Parle’s cooking, since his early days at institutions like River Cafe, Moro and Petersham Nurseries, and later when he started opening his own venues – including lauded Dock Kitchen in Ladbroke Grove, where he fused Mediterranean and Middle Eastern cuisines into sharing plates before they became menu staples. It closed in 2017, but he’s brought the same excitement for easygoing cooking to Pastaio, the fresh pasta bar he opened in 2017, and now to Town.
So, back to those cows. The cattle are 100 per cent grass fed and reared on land owned by Wildfarmed, a regenerative farming project co-owned by Groove Armada’s Andy Cato. “The diet of the cow is almost more important than any other factor. I think it’s more important than breed or age,” Parle says. “It makes them delicious.” Town is the first restaurant to serve their beef.
The beef is used across the menu: cooked down into the unctuous house-made gravy served with potato sourdough (the dish you may have seen on Instagram); served as a rich bone marrow topping the saffron risotto. Parle hints at an upcoming beef tartare and cherry dish dovetailing with cherry season. The menu changes weekly, as produce swivels in and out of season.
Parle’s approach to plants is similar. Some produce, including radishes, is plucked directly from his own garden in Kent. Honey also comes from his own property. Every element is treated simply once in the kitchen.
“I like the integrity of the ingredient to remain,” says Parle. “We never cook in a way where we’re trying to make something taste like something else or look like something else.” In practice, that might mean a gilda of soused mackerel with guindilla, cucumber and shiso; asparagus from east Kent with Mangalica (a Hungarian pig breed) lardo and cherry vinegar; and pork with early season onions.
Parle has enlisted Kevin Armstrong from Satan’s Whiskers to oversee a sharp cocktail menu, with a focus on mini cocktails and low-ABV sips. “His drinks are very similar to how I like to cook,” says Parle. “Not too many ingredients.” Wines run from classic and old world to more radical and new world.
Parle can’t neatly sum up Town, but that’s one of its appeals. “I just want people to trust that I know what’s good. Just come to Town and I’ll sort you out.”
Town
26–29 Drury Lane, London WC2B 5RL
020 3500 7515
Hours:
Mon to Sat midday–3pm, 5pm–10.30pm
Sun midday–4pm
