There is only one thing I really hate at restaurants.
Obviously stuff like the food being underwhelming, or feeling overcharged for really small portions sucks, but to me, they don’t hold a candle to the worst offence. For what it’s worth, I think I am a pretty chill diner – I’m not really bothered by “bad” service, because it’s subjective and to be honest in my experience, it’s usually at least a bit funny*, and I don’t think I’ve ever sent food back to the kitchen in my life. But what does really bum me out is feeling rushed.
Now this does largely depend on context. If you’re the type of person who gets to the front of a long chicken shop queue and you’re still deciding what you want, then you should feel rushed (frankly you should feel ashamed – people are hungry, man). But if you’re at a sit-down restaurant, having booked your table a few weeks in advance as London Reservation Culture™ dictates, and you feel like you’re wanted out of the door after about 45 minutes, that’s a different story.
Rushed service and table-turniness is rarely restaurant staff’s fault – they’re just doing the job dictated by management – and I know there’s a cozzie livs on and hospitality is a particularly rough and precarious business, of course. I’m not hating, but I’ll be honest and say that one of the reasons why I like going to restaurants is because they offer an element of escapism. The way some people watch movies or play video games to get away from their lives, I like to go to restaurants. When I am at a restaurant, I have entered a tiny world within a world, where I am someone with choices, who has only delectable things to think about. So feeling hovered over, and getting the sense that your table is needed for someone else, even though you might, in theory, be up for spending a bit more money, kind of necessarily pricks a bit of a pin in that fantasy.
The opposite of that, of course, are places where you’re able to truly luxuriate in the experience. These are the types of experiences you’re likely to remember, and, therefore, the types of places you’re likely to go back to. And all of this is to say that recently, at Little Kudu, a South African-inspired tapas restaurant next to Queens Road Peckham station (I told you last week that there would be no respite for those of you who are sick of my south east London bias, sorry), I ate one of those absolutely golden meals, where time barely seems to pass or even matter, and where there’s a “just right”, Goldilocks-style window in between each round of food, specifically so that each dish gets its moment.
I arrived at 7:30PM on a bright, sunny evening. I was asked on arrival whether I preferred an outside or inside seat, and I plumped for the patio**, which immediately made my brain go “you are on holiday”, and any ideas I was been entertaining about “not drinking” evaporated there and then.
It was a Wednesday night, which probably helped with the relaxed nature of proceedings – I’d imagine it’s livelier on a Saturday lunchtime, for example. The air was still warm and the light was honeyed, even though I was for all intents and purposes sitting next to a train station. There were a few groups of two also on the little terrace, and not long after I got there, I was joined by my own company for the evening, my good friend Lucy Letherland, whose work illuminates this newsletter every week, translating the ravings of a cholesterol-addled freak into a funny, charming illustration that entices people to read it more than anything I do ever could. We settled in and – as it was a warm evening and we are girlies before we are anything else – ordered spritzes made with elderflower liqueur. We also took our waiter’s recommendation and opted to have the tapas set menu, which is made up of a series of eight small dishes, based on two people sharing, at £45 a head.
As someone who is crap at deciding what to order, I am always quite keen on a set menu. I also adore to try lots of different tastes (my ideal eating style is “buffet”) and palpably buzz off the novelty of something new coming to the table. I find that latter part particularly fun when I’m not massively familiar with the cuisine (in this case, South African), so the way Little Kudu do things – lots of snacks, with the cooking centred on the braai, building up to a larger main course – suits me particularly well.
Also, I should mention that when I posted on Instagram last week asking what people wanted to see in Dining Out in the future, something that came up was decent set menus or prix fixes, so I’m flagging now that I think this is a good option wherein you get to sample loads of different stuff, if that’s your bag. Also also, Lucy is pescatarian and Little Kudu were great about catering to those requirements, changing up meat dishes from the set menu out for vegetarian or fish ones.
When the food started emerging from the kitchen, it felt sort of like a Generation Game-style conveyor belt of small plates***: it all just kept coming, perfectly paced. First of all was the Little Kudu loaf with cape malay butter, which is a warm, ridged brioche loaf whose innards are sweet and almost croissant-like. It comes with a veritable pan of butter, served molten (sext) and heavily seasoned with both curry powder and leaves. The mission is to soak up as much of the butter as possible with the bread. You do not need me to tell you that this tastes class.
Alongside the brioche were grilled artichoke hearts, served simply on labneh with dill. This felt like quite a trendy dish, because other than that girl who flashed her tits at the Portal, there’s nothing the internet loves more right now than a) dill and b) whacking a vegetable on top of something whipped, but I enjoyed it, even though I was hyper-aware that I was having my saddo millennial tastes catered to. A bit later on, there was a plate of cod’s roe with pickled cucumber, which was also tasty, but gave me a similar feeling.
Next up, it was the turn of the panipuri – hollow, fried balls made with semolina flour, layered up inside with all the good shit: coriander pesto, creme fraiche and mango chutney – which made for a single great bite each, kind of like a really elite Pacman pellet. These came out with one of my favourite dishes, the Braaibroodjie, which is a South African barbecue staple – essentially a mini cheese toastie done on the grill, served with a really deep, rich, and smoky tomato chutney.
I think that when we talk about cooking, there’s a lot of rightful emphasis on balance and harmony in the elements on the dish. But there’s also a great deal to be said for maximalism, and what I think of as “just fucking going for it” – that is, layering a lot of different versions of the same kind of flavour, so while of course the chutney contributed some acid to cut through all that cheese, it also added an umami that upped the ante on the charred flavour given to the bread by the grill itself. Get you a condiment that can do both, and so on.
Unbelievably, there was still a bunch more to come – an endive salad (gotta be one of my favourite leaves), peri peri mussels (come on), plus what were ostensibly our “main” courses – for Lucy that meant sea bream with sea greens, sesame and chilli, and for me, it was picanha steak with tropea onion, all cooked on the braai.
I was disappointed with the beef, which was sadly a bit chewy, even though it was so rare and thinly sliced – so based on that, I’d say that as a tapas spot, it really is in those more fun, novel and creative plates that Little Kudu seems to properly thrive, and this was proven even further when we got to dessert. There was a strawberry and elderflower millefeuille, which was well done enough – prettily executed, with the thin, crisp pastry layers you’re after – but the real heavy hitter came out of absolutely nowhere.
A little dessert canelé, buttery and palpably eggy, piped full of gorgonzola, then lavished with ember honey and finished with chives, was probably the best thing we ate all night. At most of the places I write about, I’ll have a moment with one dish where I go full Scooby Doo-eating-an-eight-layer-burger mode, unhinging my jaw like a snake going to town on a rat, because it’s so fantastic. At Little Kudu, I had that moment with that beautiful canelé – a clever fusion dish on a menu full of them, kind of exemplifying everything I think the place does best.
When Lucy and I finished dessert, the sun had set and it was getting a bit chilly out in front of Little Kudu. In among the constant parade of different foods and flavours, plus that last-minute jaw-dropper of a pud – as well as the fact that we were minorly celebrating because while we were at dinner, Dining Out got its 500th subscriber; thank you everyone, by the way – I’d barely paid any attention to the time. We left at 10PM, happy, full, and totally unrushed. What a treat.
This visit was arranged by my friends at Crab Communications, but the thoughts are mine all mine.
* Indeed, there are some places – I’m talking about Wong Kei – where the “bad” service is the stuff of legend, erring on camp, and more generally, anyone who has ever worked a waiting or bar job knows how shit it can be. So while really attentive service is lovely, of course – I’ve written tons of times already about how it can be the thing that makes a good meal great – I don’t really care if someone forgets to bring me a fork or rolls their eyes at American customers or whatever.
** This meant I was seated in prime view of Peckham’s most beloved skateboarding (i.e. peacocking) spot, which is, famously, in front of Queens Road station, and as such over the course of the evening counted four people I have flirted with either on Instagram or in the smoking area of SET over the past few years. Plus ça change.
*** This is a really stupid aside but I was on the phone to my mom the other day and she said the phrase “small plates” which was really jarring. Concerned that she may be considering a move to Leyton and cultivating opinions about Topjaw.
Dining Out is written by Lauren O’Neill and illustrated by Lucy Letherland. It’s free to read every Thursday, but if you’d like to support what we do, you can do so here. To receive Dining Out directly to your inbox, subscribe via the button below:
See you next week!