The front section of The Brave's dining room
What do we need to know about The Brave?
This is the latest opening from chef James Cochran and his business partners the Seven-Eighths Group who also run pubs in Victoria Park and Barnsbury. It's a return to the Islington dining scene for Cochran, who was forced to close his restaurant 12:51 last summer.
They describe The Brave as a bistro pub as opposed to a gastro pub. That may be semantics, but it's definitely a space that's more geared towards dining than drinking, even though there is a clearly defined bar if you just want to pop in for a pint of beer or a cocktail. Certainly, one look at both the snacks and dining room menu shows that the team here are putting food at the forefront of their offering.
The bar section of the pub
Where is it?
You'll find it towards the top of Essex Road in Islington - on the same stretch as another new type of pub, Godet, and just a few minutes walk from Goodbye Horses. The arrival of The Brave more than makes this part of Islington worth crossing town for. Your nearest train station would be Essex Road (five minutes away) or it's about a 20-minute walk to Highbury and Islington tube.
Where should we sit?
The L-shaped dining room offers two main dining areas - the front section looking out onto Essex Road and a back dining room with an open kitchen if you like keeping abreast of what's going on in the kitchen. There's plenty of room for groups to dine and, in the summer, they're working on turning the large pub garden into a place to be.
So what is on the menu?
We think you're going to want to have a go at both menus - the bar snacks and the main menu. The former is particularly enticing; sat here with a pint in hand and one of those snacks in front of you, you'd be pretty pleased with yourself.
Here's what we had, to give you an idea of what to try, starting with the bar snacks.
Jerk spiced chicken Scotch egg (£8.50) served with Cochran's famous Scotch bonnet jam. (That ragged cut-through was entirely our fault).
Crisp hash browns (£6) served with chip shop curry sauce, batter scraps and malt vinegar. You dip the chips in the sauce and then into the scraps. Heaven.
Guinness and cheese rarebit with bread and butter pickles (£9) - perfect drinking food.
At this point, we moved on to the menu proper, with the highlights being...
Scottish razor clam ceviche with quince, bacon and pint nuts (£8) - quality producers are a big part of the culinary journey here, with Keltic Seafare up on the northwest coast of Scotland being the supplier of amazing shellfish to the pub.
Whipped chicken liver parfait brick tartlets with blood plum gel (£8) - a development of Cochran's chicken liver parfait Jammy Dodgers that were served up in 12:51.
Potato dumplings with slow-braised shin of beef with hay emulsion, Montgomery cheddar (£12) with added Wiltshire truffle (£10 extra).
What's on the menu for those on a plant-forward diet?
There's a decent enough selection from those amazing hash browns on the snacks menu through to a slow-cooked Arlington egg with Harrietsham leeks over coal and onion truffle hollandaise on the main menu. We's also recommend the following dish if it's on.
Roast maitake mushroom with mushroom parfait and celeriac with soda bread crumb (£9).
Room for dessert?
Normally at this stage, we'd swerve off the cheese course, having more than had our fill of rich dishes. But that'd be a serious mistake at The Brave when you can order the Baron Bigod cheese with muscatel grapes on a homemade Garibaldi biscuit with truffle (£12). It's an honestly genius way to serve up cheese in a way that won't kill you at the end of a big meal. You should also order this...
Chocolate tart with vanilla ice-cream (£8) - we've had our fair share of custard tarts over the past 12 months and the one here was a standout.
Overall thoughts: We popped in to try The Brave just before breaking for the Christmas holidays. It had only been open for a week or so, but clearly word had got out because the place was packed. Over on Instagram where our reel on it has done big numbers, people are losing their minds over us daring to describe this as a pub. But we're firmly of the opinion that pubs have to be able to develop and grow or we'll continue to see them closing down. The fact that there is a distinct area kept free for drinking makes this a gastropub in our mind and there's clearly room for it in the area, going off how quickly this has been adopted by Islington locals.
James's menu - both in the bar and restaurant section is an absolute treat. We can see this being a big success.
More about The Brave
Where is it? 340-342 Essex Road, London N1 3PB
Find out more: on their website or follow them on Instagram @thebravelondon
Hot Dinners dined as guests of The Brave. Prices correct at time of publication.
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