A Mayfair restaurant that isn’t.

Noble Rot is the best value restaurant in Mayfair, and maybe London.

Collaboration.
Or, if you are a digital marketing wizard, ‘collab’, is the restaurant buzzword of 2024.
The ‘pop up’ is so passé, terribly 2019.
Nowadays, there are collabs everywhere you look. Pringle crisps and The Caviar Company are collaborating, Momofuku have previously collaborated with NIKE and are collaborating with Raaka - a Brooklyn based chocolate company; anyone fancy a miso potato chip dark chocolate bar?
Last year L’Enclume the three Michelin star UK restaurant collaborated with Bathers Pavilion in Sydney, whilst Eleven Madison Park transplanted their plant-based menu from New York City, in collaboration with Aria restaurant in Sydney.
It seems like anyone who has ever picked up a fry pan is in on this collaborating caper.
Recently, Uber Eats and Brooklyn Beckham collaborated on a food offering that according to the press release, is inspired by Brooklyn’s “global upbringing”, featuring such culinary classics as Chicken Tikka Marsala and The English Breakfast Sandwich, a homage to his despairing grandmother, Peggy.
I am going to go out on a limb here and declare that this maybe the most dangerous food collaboration since Oscar Pistorius collaborated with Door Dash. Perhaps this dynamic duo could collaborate and resuscitate Brooklyn’s defunct YouTube show.
“Cookin with Brooklyn’, and “Simmer with Oscar?”
I would definitely watch that.

All of which brings us to a far more intriguing collaboration held last week at the Melbourne Food and Wine Festival involving Marion wine bar and Noble Rot wine bar from London. Both establishments are fun and relaxed serving wonderfully unpretentious seasonal dishes coupled with an extensive selection of wines by the glass, from the rare classics to the latest natural producers. I have eaten at the Noble Rot restaurants in Soho and Lambs Conduit Street, and so when I had recently read they had opened a third restaurant in Mayfair, I was curious but apprehensive.

Ah, lovely, genial Mayfair; the suburb where mothers think natural childbirth is allowing your surrogate to deliver a child sans athletic wear. As you walk around here the air is thick with white privilege, petro-state proprietorship and designer leather. Many of the restaurants in Mayfair are gaudy, kitsch palaces serving overpriced muck to haughty diners that are far more interested in augmentation than degustation.  And so, it was quite the surprise as I strolled into the most un- Mayfair part of Mayfair, to discover an English village scene straight from central casting. The Shepherd Market is a gorgeous buzzy Georgian Square filled with boutiques, cafes, and restaurants. On opposite corners of the square are the Ye Grapes pub (circa 1882) and The Kings Arms (est 1742) both are the type of pubs that you might expect to see an inebriated Bridget Jones fall out of, they ooze British charm and add character to the quaint Hugh Grantesque panorama.

The restaurant is located in a handsome dark green corner building with brass accents, framed with large glass panels and discreet low hung white curtains. Inside, the sleek room is flooded with natural light and the perimeter is lined with a cherry red leather banquette and candlelit dark wooden tables with marble/brass detailing, the walls are joyfully adorned with framed covers from the Noble Rot magazine.
There is an egalitarian approach that illuminates the menu choices, the set lunch menu is an astounding two courses for £22 and three for £26. When you consider that Sexy Fish around the corner is charging £26 for salmon teriyaki, you begin to realise that financial food fraud is thriving, and some duplicitous proprietors can’t differentiate between ponzu and ponzi.

One of the joys of eating at Noble Rot is the breadth and variety of new and old-world wines that are available by the glass selection; and you can find a suitable glass of Portuguese Vinho Verde for £5 or pay £33 for a glass of Belargus Anjou, ‘Quarts’, from the Loire Valley. Wine nerds, Americans and “foodies” (whatever they are), will have an issue with the fact that the wines aren’t fawned over and poured at the table, but they might be people you should avoid dining with, just sayin.
My friend selects from the set menu, and I got busy with the a la carte menu. The bread selection here is so brilliant that it can almost steal the show; there are warm slices of focaccia, miche and the BEST soda bread known to man. It is yeasty, malty, treacly, achingly crumbly with an enduring anise flavour, a taste memory so ingrained it is guaranteed to give you sleep deprivation.
To start, we share an exquisite salad of salt baked celeriac, the plate showcases thinly sliced petals of the root vegetable, hugging a thatch of green herbs, roasted hazelnuts and dollops of goat’s curd add light and shade.
Elegant and balanced.
The first main course from the set menu is essentially a humble dish of steak with bearnaise and potatoes that your favourite grandmother might make for you, assuming your grandmother is French and has forearms the size of Popeye’s. The flank steak is rich and toothsome, grilled to medium with a crown of arugula leaves, wedges of roasted potatoes and a generous ladle of bearnaise.
The other main is a thick tile of Cornish cod that is topped with a row of gelatinous white fungi that gives the dish the aesthetic of a lunar landscape. The fish is perfectly caramelised that flakes to reveal an opaque centre, it rests on a bed of stewed leek and cauliflower purée, in a pond of a fragrant vin jaune sauce, which is nutty and tart. We fight over the last remnants of the glossy potato purée because you can never eat enough potatoes.
Desserts are textbook, classic and inviting. To finish there is a sticky date pudding with toffee sauce and double cream, sufficiently moist, decadent but soft. The crème caramel has the requisite wobble of a sumo wrestler and the silky texture of breakfast tofu. The sweetness of the custard is kept in balance by the addition of Sauternes and tiny macerated muscat grapes.

Noble Rot is a restaurant that feels like a modern member’s club where any one can become a member. The passion for great and interesting wine is at it’s core, and the excellent modern classic food is served by a team of engaged, wine savvy and witty professionals who know what you want before you do.
Now that is a collab I want to collaborate with.

Noble Rot, Mayfair
https://noblerot.co.uk/restaurant/mayfair