The gypsy tart finished off the whole thing - sugary but amazing.
What can you tell us about Pidgin?
if you're unfamiliar with them, they're a small and hugely popular restaurant in Hackney, run by Sam Herlihy and James Ramsden. At the restaurant during normal times, you can expect a single set course menu with a difference - it completely changes every week. So once you've missed a dish, it's gone forever as they never repeat themselves. The same approach translates to their delivery venture, called Homing Pidgin.
And for this, they've teamed up with Mortimer House?
They had already been delivering Homing Pidgin weekly dinners to the local east London area, pretty much since the beginning of the first lockdown. That's still continuing - but now they're also working from the Mortimer House kitchen in Fitzrovia and delivering across the whole of London. So if you were previously outside of their catchment area, this is your chance to get your Pidgin fix right now.
Here's the set-up for our dinner, not too daunting. Note that all the packaging is compostable.
The concept remains the same?
It does indeed - so every week, there will be a new menu. We'll show you what we had below to give you a small flavour of what they're doing - but those dishes are gone forever now. The changing menu does give you the opportunity to wait until something really catches your eye, though. So if the latest dishes aren't quite your thing - just check back the following week to see how things have changed.
And they really change - it's not just a case of tweaking dishes - the whole menu is reinvented every week.
What kind of meal-kit is it?
It's a combination of plating and warming only. For our menu, only one of the courses needed warming in the oven, making it a very simple process.
And what was on the menu for your dinner?
Our three-course meal was...
Sourdough focaccia and brown butter - the one thing that's on the menu more than once. The brown butter is very, very good and we do like to think of ourselves as butter connoisseurs.
The first course - heritage carrots with spiced almonds, sake lees ajo blanco, boquerones and sherry vinaigrette. On a blustery March evening we might have preferred a warm salad perhaps, but the ajo blanco and the dressing were extremely impressive.
The main course - toban djan glazed ox cheek with beef floss furikake, pickled ginger and wasabi sushi rice cake and Flourish Farm mustard greens. A great example of what Pidgin can do - bringing together disparate, ingredients you might not have in the kitchen already, in a way that you'd never manage to do for a single dinner. While that piece of beef was as lovely and tender as you need beef cheek to be, the real winner was the sushi rice cake - the wasabi kick really elevated it.
We adore gipsy tart at the best of times - and this was definitely up there with the best. It went particularly extremely well with the blackened apple and quince jam, which contrasted well with the sweetness of the tart.
And that menu has already changed?
Yes, at the time of writing, the next dinner features this little setup:
- Warm coco bean salad with a lardo dressing, cranberry poached radicchio, fennel and roasted hazelnuts
- Fennel seed cured chicken thigh with a porcini and Madeira sauce, celeriac gratin and spring greens with spiced lovage butter
- Orange posset with a chocolate and orange blossom cremeax, stem ginger and candied orange peel with a tempered chocolate crumb
So that illustrates just how much the menu shifts every week. Have to love a menu which has a salad with a lardo dressing...
What if I'm out of London at the moment?
They have a monthly dinner that is being delivered nationwide too. Given delivery constraints, that's not going to change as much - but on the other hand it's actually a five-course meal. At the moment, it features dishes like pork belly croquettes with miso and confit garlic aioli as well as 36hr slow-braised Swaledale featherblade with shiitake ketchup, smoked potato dauphine and wild garlic buttered kale.
Overall thoughts?
Pidgin have been one of London's truly great restaurants pretty much since they started, and they've moved to the new delivery way of life with aplomb. An ever-changing menu means you're bound to find a meal that's just right for you and once you've found that match, we'd strongly advise you to order asap.
More about Pidgin at Mortimer House
How much? £50 (feeds two)
Delivery range: Within the M25
How to order: Order online Order by 5pm on Tuesday for Friday delivery.
Find out more: Follow them on Instagram @pidginlondon and @mortimerhousekitchen.
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