Magpie

Magpie is a modern European restaurant and bar on Heddon Street, just off Regent Street, from the team behind the award-winning Pidgin in Hackney. We serve beautifully crafted sharing plates and cocktails along with a small, carefully selected and frequently changing wine list. In the evening we have a special selection of snacks which we serve from our custom-made trolley.

MAGPIE

http://magpie-london.com

Magpie review – Modernist food served 'Dim Sum'-style in Mayfair ...

Although a handful of dishes are on a menu and prepared to order, the majority of Magpie’s eclectic fare is pre-prepared and then literally carted around on heavy, medieval-looking trolleys and trays Dim Sum-style for you to choose from as and when you want.

Its role here was largely just for looks, but its ‘filling’ really hit the spot – a selection of tart and vinegary pickled carrots and daikon, along with crunchy fried rice noodle bits, all dressed in powerfully umami and smoky sauces.

The fruit slices themselves were largely sharp and umami, but a smoky cream, tart radishes, nutty pumpkin seeds and a herby garnish were not only flavoursome in their own right but also complimented the tomatoes rather than clashing with them.

A pickled strawberry salad was meant as a savoury dish rather than as a dessert.

They didn’t need the milky crackers or sweet and tart kumquat-like fruit chutney, although these accompaniments were pleasing in their own right.

Magpie | A Central London Bar and Restaurant from Pidgin's ...

But this Magpie manages it in one – because it’s the next venture from the duo behind Michelin-starred Hackney bistro, Pidgin – and this time they’re offering a British take on dim sum washed down with a slick of unusual cocktails.

Based on both a trolley service and larger dishes à la carte, you’ll find plates wheeling straight past your table like an old-fashioned Yo Sushi conveyor belt, which you can flag down whenever you fancy… COLD DISHES …styled as drinking snacks, including Viet-style rillettes and pickles, and crispy polenta with brandade and kimchi; HOT DISHES …coming to you straight from the kitchen, like clams with saucisson and chilli crisp; and fried chicken ‘coq au vin’; AND COCKTAILS …circulating on another trolley, and including numbers like the “I’m Jim Morrison I’m Dead” with rye, oloroso and a cherry liqueur, and the “Youth Lagoon”, combining vodka with aloe vera, curacao and lemon sherbet.

Of course, if you head up to the bar, there’s also a range of (primarily Californian) small-grower wines on tap, plus even more cocktails like “The State Bird”, with gin, egg white, blanched pea shoots and dehydrated raspberries.

NOTE: Magpie is now open weekdays 8am-midnight (kitchen closes at 10.30pm), with a late morning and afternoon break in service.

Magpie | 10 Heddon Street, W1B 4BX Like elegant bistro types?

Magpie, British Restaurant, Heddon Street | Culture Whisper

At Magpie, their new restaurant, the duo will be cooking with unusual fusion ingredients new to London.

They include kosho and fennel pollen, and all dishes will be served from table-side roaming trolleys.

Now food writer James Ramsden and indie musician Sam Herlihy are coming together to establish a new venture in Central London.

Other than a new breakfast menu, which opens out into all-day service throughout the day (Pidgin is only open for lunch and dinner), Magpie won't be very far removed from the duo's flagship.

Magpie is the chance to try the Michelin-starred food available in Hackney in the middle of central London.

Magpie | Mayfair, Belgravia | Restaurant Reviews | Hot Dinners

Magpie, London: restaurant review - olive magazine

Check out our review of Magpie in London, and see if an expert restaurant critic comes to the same conclusion as an olive reader… Hilary Armstrong is a freelance writer and restaurant reviewer based in east London.

The sweet juicy strawberries and salty candied Kalamata olives play off each other appealingly but are let down by bland olive oil ice cream and strange desiccated morsels of brioche.

Beef tartare with truffle chips and taleggio emulsion had a real earthiness and was a highlight, along with the contrasting soft and crunchy textures of rice-paper covered vermicelli with sharp pickled daikon and truffle.

Our strawberry panzanella dessert with olive oil ice cream and basil oil was also a standout, with crunchy pieces of buttery brioche.

Magpie feels very much like an east London hipster restaurant transported to the West End, from the open kitchen to the exposed brick and hanging light bulb fixtures.

Fay Maschler reviews Magpie: Off their trolley | London Evening ...

Apart from the inclusion of white flour — too ordinary and old hat — and the omission of an ingredient you have never heard of, this could well have been the stimulus for one of the assemblies served at newly opened Magpie in Heddon Street.

A magpie in the gastronomic garden might collect together blueberry yuzu kosho, violet mustard, whipped black vinegar tofu, pepitas (aka pumpkin seeds), carrot vinny (me neither), jalapeño coriander ketchup and miso masa polenta.

The wheeze of presenting small dishes for sharing, either on a trolley or on a tray brought by a waiter to the table, has allegedly been inspired by (or copied from) the restaurant State Bird Provisions in San Francisco.

As well as the trolley and tray a few larger dishes under the heading “kitchen” can be ordered separately.

Rents are high in London W1 and staffing here is copious but these little dishes ticked off as if on a dim sum menu add up to an unconscionable total, bolstered, it must be said, by tempting cocktails and the nifty facility of wine on tap.

Magpie | Restaurants in Mayfair, London

Plenty of the food at Magpie is great (more on this later), but that’s not the reason to love it.

You could even ask your fellow diners for help: much like my first visit to Pidgin, its Hackney sibling, this was a friendly crowd, with plenty of ‘oh, you should definitely get that one’ going on.

There’s a playful twist on a ‘coq au vin’, made with fried chicken – gotta love a bit of fried chicken – on a base of lardon mayo and pickled onions (pickled in red wine, obvs).

Gleamingly fresh meat, a mix of microscopic cornichons and shallots, melted taleggio, truffle crisps and the hit of French’s mustard (plus a dollop of egg yolk emulsion to one side).

All this happens in a big, buzzy room that’s more Shoreditch than Mayfair, with scuffed-up floors and a counter at the open kitchen.