The ground floor dining room at Mountain
What do we need to know about Mountain?
This is the much-anticipated new restaurant from Super 8 - the folk that brought you Brat (among others). Chef Tomos Parry once again heads up the kitchen here. To give you an idea of the scope of the operation, the restaurant team here includes an in-house butcher and baker - so they're butchering whole carcasses on-site and making their own cheese and bread downstairs. It's one hell of an undertaking.
Where is it?
Mountain's taken over the old Byron site on the corner of Beak Street and Upper John Street in the heart of Soho - just a street away from the restaurant group's other site here, Kiln. It's halfway between Oxford Circus and Piccadilly Circus tube stations.
Where's a good place to meet for a drink first?
Given the large downstairs bar, this would be a great spot to come directly to - but if you wanted to meet elsewhere, handy local spots include Cahoots for cocktails or the Ganton Arms in Carnaby for a pint.
Where should I sit?
It's a big space. Upstairs looks into the open kitchen and there's room for walk-ins to sit up at the counters along with plenty of larger tables for groups. Downstairs is a more clubby affair with booths and a bar along with a large wood-fired oven. We enjoyed being right by the stoves upstairs, watching all the action - and enjoying the still unusual sight of a fully gender-balanced kitchen team.
The downstairs room is far from an afterthought - those booths are great and it's also a lovely spot for a drink up at the bar.
So what kind of food are we talking?
Think a marvellous mash-up between the produce of Tomos' home country Wales and the culinary inspiration of the seaside and mountains of Spain. So you might be trying a quintessentially Menorcan dish that highlights Welsh produce. They also go big on British seasonal produce with their head of Sourcing, SongSoo Kim, off hunting down gooseberries from Cambridgeshire or plums from Gloucestershire.
The menu itself is very loosely split into snacks, larger plates and desserts, with the prices giving you the best indication of the size of the plates. Here's what we had to give you an idea of what to expect.
Monkfish and scallops (£15) - a deceptively simple serving of impeccable raw ingredients.
Fresh cheese with raw prawns (£9) - that cheese is stracciatella which couldn't be any fresher, having been made on-site.
Grilled vine leaves (£10) - stuffed with fresh house-made curds using organic milk and girolle mushrooms.
The next dish is probably the one you'll have seen on Insta and this has to be sliced open as soon as it hits the table so it doesn't overcook. It features all manner of produce sourced from within a small part of Wales. The crab and sugar kelp seaweed are from Car y Mor in West Wales while the butter is from Cardigan - from Caws Teifi. The raw organic cultured butter is made for Mountain using milk from pasture-fed cows.
Spider crab omelette (£15) - Mountain's must-have dish.
Beef sweetbreads (£26) - cooked low and slow over the fire, this arrives with green garlic and artichokes cooked on the plancha.
When you get to the mains section you're really looking at things that are cooked on the grill, from a whole John Dory to a turbot head, a tangle of lamb chops or a Tamworth pork collar which we've heard is really great.
We opted for the lobster calderata. This was mainly because chef Tomos told us to because he's so proud of the dish - and we can see why. It serves between three to five people and features a deeply intense sauce that's perfect for pouring all over the wood-fired rice that you should also order with it.
Anglesey lobster caldereta (£90 - serving three to four, £120 serving four to five). You should order some of the excellent bread to mop up every last bit of the sauce.
Wood-fired rice (£7) - scrape up the crispy bits and don't worry, as we did, about who was going to have to clean it up.
Room for dessert?
There's a short dessert menu with many of the elements given a turn on the fire too, from the ensaimadas cooked on the wood-fired oven downstairs to the peaches roasted on the grill.
Red gooseberries with cream (£8) - a low-sugar pannacotta with the freshest of fruits.
Torrija with grilled strawberries (£8.50) - the dessert to have if you're only going for one as it's unmissable.
What about the drink?
The cocktail list leans towards the light and bright with highlights being a shiso and manzanilla spritz and a Turi vermouth from Italy that they have on tap.
Obviously, there's a great wine list (Head of Wine Martina Larnach and Holly Willcocks are behind that), but we'd particularly like to draw your attention to the very welcome Down to Earth section at the back which covers two pages of wines all under £50. From here we had a Ottavio Rube Bianco from Piedmont natural winemakers Valli Unite (£43) which couldn't have been more perfect.
Overall thoughts:
It's been a while since we were last in a restaurant that was so unquestionably going to be a huge hit from day one. It's hard to put into words just what makes Mountain so good, but it's a combination of the space, the people and the confidence and skill each dish displays when it leaves the kitchen.
Whether you're popping in for a glass of wine and a snack or meeting up with mates to work your way through every part of the menu you're pretty much guaranteed a good time.
More about Mountain
Where is it? 16-18 Beak St, London W1F 9RD
How to book: Book online
Find out more: Visit their website or follow them on Instagram @mountain.restaurant
Hot Dinners dined as guests of Mountain. Prices correct at time of publication.
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