Roganic

Roganic returns to London. Expect only the freshest and most exceptional array of produce from the best suppliers around the country.

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https://www.roganic.uk

Simon Rogan | Restaurants

L’Enclume, a riverside restaurant with rooms, opened in the idyllic village of Cartmel in 2002.

Known for its truly unique offering in the UK restaurant scene, both for the warm, informed service style and innovative dishes and for the provenance of the ingredients.

Part of the L’Enclume experience is the picturesque garden facing the Cartmel river.

The restaurant has a Winter Garden space encompassing these views, in addition to the L’Enclume bakery housed in an old locksmith building, where all the restaurants bread is created.

Since opening, the restaurant has won two Michelin stars alongside many other prestigious awards and has been hailed ‘best restaurant in the UK’ for four consecutive years by the esteemed Good Food Guide.

Roganic, Marylebone: restaurant review | Foodism

You can look forward to some of the most exceptional, creative food you'll find in the capital (as you'd expect from the chef-patron of L'Enclume) served across a 15-course tasting menu.

You could go the whole four or so hours (if you opt for the longer of the two tasting menus – which, of course, we did) without clocking an emphasis on biodynamic and natural wines.

The sort served here aren't necessarily the new-school type you'll find in East London wine bars; but they're all refined, structured and full of character – none more so than the 'Opok', a sauvignon blanc from Austrian winemaker Sepp Muster with a definite funk from some skin contact; and the Saint-Peray 'Les Figuiers' white Rhône blend, full of buttery richness and almond and popcorn notes.

There are inventive plays of flavour and texture all over the menu, without ever going too cheffy: avette tartare served inside a sliver of pickled kohlrabi that reveals smokey, coal-like notes; artichoke broth with smoked cured egg yolk; seaweed custard, about as sweet as an off-dry wine, with plenty of umami.

The menu will change regularly, but put simply, this is top-level food at its finest from a chef whose presence in London is welcomed with open arms.

Roganic, London W1: Simon Rogan restaurant review

Formerly a pop-up in the same neck of the woods, Roganic is the latest restaurant from pioneering British chef and restaurateur, Simon Rogan (best known for L’Enclume and Rogan & Co, in Cartmel, the Lake District, and most recently Aulis in Soho).

Opposite Daylesford, on Marylebone’s Blandford Street, Roganic mark II offers a taste of Simon’s distinctive approach to British fine dining to customers in the capital.

There’s been a Simon Rogan-shaped hole in London’s dining scene since his surprise departure from Fera at Carridges in 2017 and finally his visionary 2011-2013 pop-up Roganic is back, and here to stay, with head chef Oli Marlow (Roganic mark I and L’Enclume) at the helm.

A sorbet of yellow beetroot bathed in buttermilk and a vibrant, sharp, green oxalis (also known as wood sorrel – a familiar sight in the woodlands close to L’Enclume) oil, was rewardingly refreshing and palate cleansing and led on to perhaps the best, certainly the most Instagramed, dish of the night… For those fans of dendrochronology (or tree-ring dating), working out how long it took to create the tightly wound round of caramelised apple is almost as satisfying as eating the thing (and its douglas fir sorbet companion) is.

Each guest is given a brown bag with bespoke-blend earl grey tea bags, slices of ‘breakfast’ cake (the best kind) and a mini pot of homemade jam.

Roganic, London W1, restaurant review: 'This is wow-factor food ...

Inspired by our lunch venue, Roganic (though before we got anywhere near to thinking about the food) my guest and I discussed Spoonerisms.

“At my school, in Dublin, in the Seventies,” Eoghan reminisced, “there was precisely one black student, whose name was Marc Dennis.

Roganic, on the other hand, is more punning than Spoonering, and thus a pretty low form of wit for a high-end eating destination.

Previously a much-lauded nearby pop-up, Roganic has now been made permanent on a site in Marylebone’s Blandford Street, opposite the high altar of upmarket, organo-sustainabilist consumerism, the Daylesford Farm Shop.

Given that Rogan’s skills lie in turning base ingredients into Michelin-gilded stars, surely he should have called it “Le Forger”.

Roganic, London W1, restaurant review - Telegraph

The room itself is simple, but, as we all know by now, true luxury is not a fancy interior but the taking of infinite pains, the sheer manpower required to forage cobnuts and ox-eye daisy instead of just shrugging and using filberts and parsley.

I'm going to skip over the cured and smoked Dorset char with Watts Farm peppers and crab apple for brevity (it was great, but I'm not a huge fan of peppers; this isn't Rogan's problem, or indeed yours) to arrive at what I considered the star of the show, pig and Lincolnshire eel, black mustard, sea purslane and pickled corn.

The corn was intensely sweet and the mustard was just intense.

I'm all out of time to tell you about the dessert segment – two courses, one of pear, chocolate, chestnuts and buckthorn which I found a bit rich, the other of bilberries, dried caramel, natural yogurt, iced lemon thyme and white-chocolate sorbet, which I found a bit puzzling.

The restaurant, ornate in shades of red and gold, opens its 10-course menu (£95) with a seared scallop in sweet shallot purée, before braised pig cheek with house black pudding This handsome neo-Tudor building is set in a deer park, so it's no surprise that venison plays a starring role in the 10-course Prestige menu (£95).

Roganic, London W1: 'Already a place for chefs, bloggers and ...

It has gorgeous restaurants – Jikoni, Carousel, Trishna and so on – but terrible people painted into a corner of blandness by their own spare cash.

Dinner has highs and lows, but then Rogan’s food is always a deeply subjective experience.

(I spend the next day researching enoki, and conclude that celeriac with enoki should be on every vegan menu by 2019.)

At least that gave me a tagline for a future Roganic PR push: “Spend all night with Simon Rogan’s gang.

• Roganic 5-7 Blandford Street, London W1, 020-337 06260.