Earlier this year Confidential confirmed one of the worst kept secrets in Manchester hospitality - that international restaurant group, D&D London, were to take on the 24th floor rooftop space of Allied London's £73m No.1 Spinningfields tower on Hardman Square. We sent our roving restaurant critic Neil Sowerby to their first Northern venture, Crafthouse in Leeds, to suss out the cut of their jib.
AND there was me thinking D&D stood for Dungeons and Dragons. Not in the world of high-end restaurants where one of the savviest global collections around belongs to Des (Gunewardena) and David (Loewi) – the guys who led a management buy-out of Conran Restaurants a decade ago and never looked back.
Leeds seems prepared to pay up; will Manchester if the offering is something simillar?
In eighteen months’ time D&D’s latest enterprise will be lording it 100 metres above ground level in Allied London's No.1 Spinningfields tower on Hardman Square, looking down substantially on fine dining rival Manchester House. I suspect the prices (ouch) will be a level killing field on the evidence of a visit to their first Northern venture, Crafthouse, which brought London prices to Trinity Leeds a couple of years ago.
Crafthouse sounds like it ought to be weaving artisan sourdough or being stupidly lavish with hops in a faux-rustic barn. Not so. It’s as slick as a gelled quiff in its glass starship atop the mall with sister bar Angelica above reaching for the heavens alongside Holy Trinity spire.
You suspect this (minus the Georgian church) might be the template for No.1 Spinningfields. Starry-eyed Allied London CEO Mike Ingall has been heard muttering ‘Michelin’. Well, D&D do have a couple of starry joints in their roster, including Kensington’s superb Launceston Place, but that’s a genteel townhouse that purrs quiet perfection. Crafthouse isn’t. Friday evening 8pm and it’s buzzing like a swarm of hornets.
Crafthouse, Leeds
No.1 Spinningfields restaurant CGIService is immediately impressive. We are early. We expect to be shunted to the bar but are guided to our table, which thankfully is not hubbub central. So far so good but when the ordering starts it gets complicated. Starters of seared duck liver for my lovely pal, veal sweetbreads for me please; respective mains of muntjac deer with nasturtium root and wild Yorkshire rabbit. "Thank you, sir, I’ll bring your wine.”
Return of said waiter. Sweetbreads are finished, so I take a slurp of the priciest house wine I can recall and order escargots instead. Cue waiter back again – the last of the deer has been sold. So Norfolk longhorn lamb it is, and medium rare it has to be. How bare will the larder be by 9.30, we wonder? It looks well on the way as the couple just seated at the next table discover the wild rabbit is now no more.
I respect a menu that sticks to seven starters and six mains but even on a hectic day – and testament to Crafthouse’s popularity it sure is – this dish decimation is inexcusable.
I can’t imagine the fair value set meal (£23.50 three courses, £19.50 two courses) would suffer a similar fate, but the £65 five-course tasting menu must have been imperilled. Still there was always the fallback of meats and lobster blasted succulently on the Josper.
Crafthouse: Seared Duck LiverBack to the Rhone-sourced D&D wines, Les Trois Bises and Les Gamins, which were both delicious. They are apparently 'blended by a crack team of their sommeliers', so I imagine they crop up in all 35 of their restaurants.
I checked Le Pont de la Tour, one of the fine London establishments inherited from Terence Conran, and they offer the Gamins red at £9 a 175cl glass. At Le Pont it was eight quid. Starters there are more expensive, the average main much the same.
At such prices the food has to be top notch and for two courses at Crafthouse it was. I feared I’d regret the fried, battered snails (sorry, crispy escargot at £9.50), but they weren’t too chewy and the presentation was playful. You poured a snail shell of ‘spinach milkshake’ over them and that with a confit garlic mousse felt classic; globules of basil-compressed cucumber and smaller globules of snail caviar less so; still I liked chef Lee Murdoch’s confidence in it all working (it did).
The rich, seared duck liver (£14) was cut through cleverly with a sour yoghurt, sorrel water and L8 harvest vinegar, which like Eiswein is made from frozen grapes. I’ve never come across it before; nor ‘perciage’ mentioned alongside the escargot (I was no wiser after Googling).
A glass each of the Trois Bises (Three Kisses) and we appreciated the balance and richness of this Rhone blend of Roussanne, Grenache Blanc and Viognier. Even better was the 500cl carafe (£25) of Les Gamins, all ripe black fruit and surprisingly elegant. How it would have paired with the missing muntjac (regrets, yes we had a few).
Crafthouse: Lamb loinMurdoch’s mains combine terrific technique and presentation, verging on fussy, with intense flavour juxtapositions. The obvious – lamb with anchovy (£24). Less so, the rabbit with morels and duck liver (£25). My rolls of wild rabbit and a supporting cast of duck liver, a bunny boudin blanc, brioche, potato terrine, wild garlic, spring peas and an abundance of morels came in a great crescent on the plate. Countryside in one dish. Sides of luscious spinach Rockefeller and truffle chips helped fill the barren foreground.
The lamb loin was less ambitious, less medium rare than threatened – a good thing. Encrusted in crushed broad beans and anchovy paste, it sat on a puddle of leeching piquillo pepper. Spring rolls of crispy shoulder stood guard over the ensemble, which also included a grilled little gem lettuce. It was not quite a thing of beauty but my partner loved its powerful flavours.
Beautiful indeed was the ‘Valrhona symphony’ from a miraculously undepleted dessert list. Hard to resist white chocolate discs engraved with staves and semi-quavers but the rest of the performance, a Japanese-style namelaka (made from milk chocolate, glucose cream and gelatin?), an underpowered chocolate brownie and mousse, didn’t live up to the Valrhona legend.
For the same £8.50 price my tropical gateau was a major letdown – a kind of deconstructed trifle with too much fluffy coconut sponge, compressed (ie jellied) fruits with a drab yoghurt glacé.
With the addition of one of those regrettable ten per cent discretionary service charges the bill topped £150. London prices for highly professional food that is nowhere near the Michelin innovations of a Rogan or O’Hare – or for that matter Aiden Byrne on his lowly eighth floor. Yet Leeds seems prepared to pay up; will Manchester if the offering is something simillar?
Crafthouse, Level 5, Trinity Leeds, 70 Boar Lane, Leeds LS1 6HW. Tel: 0113 897 0444.
Rating: 15.5/20
Food: 7.5/10 (escargot 8, duck liver 9, lamb 8, rabbit 9, Valrhona 6, tropical gateau 5)
Atmosphere: 4/5
Service: 4/5
D&D are to open a restaurant on the rooftop of No.1 Spinningfields next year
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