SAYING GOODBYE TO LINDSAY HOUSE

Is fine dining in London's Soho over? Just before Richard Corrigan moved his restaurant to aristocratic Mayfair, Nina Caplan visited Lindsay House for one last glorious bite ...

Special to MORE INTELLIGENT LIFE

On a blazing May Day I was bound for Richard Corrigan's Lindsay House to bid a delectable farewell. After 25 years (ten under Corrigan), the discreet door to this venerated London restaurant was just about to close, spelling the end of its distinct mix of Irish hospitality, French punctilio and Soho luxe. Just one more rap in the tattoo of restaurant doors shutting across the city, though Corrigan has relocated his establishment to aristocratic Mayfair under his own name. Soho, observes Corrigan, is over.

If Soho has had it, London should worry. This charming network of ancient lanes has retained its character better than almost anywhere else in London's centre. Named for an Anglo-Norman hunting cry shouted across 16th-century fields, Soho is where Londoners have traditionally come to get drunk, laid and thumped: a heady whiff of bohemian booze clings to the Georgian townhouses. But it is also where more respectable locals come to get fed, and this combination-- wild bars and decent grub--keeps the area balanced, real.

Corrigan, a convivial bloke who makes beautiful food, suited the place. What does it say for our most eclectic dining scene when mould-breaking restaurateurs with a sense of humour prefer to join Mayfair’s po-faced ranks of empire-building Michelin-chasers feeding the over-nourished rich?

The brass plaque on the Lindsay House door instructs "Please Ring", but a staff member preemptively welcomed us in, took our coats and led us upstairs. The atmosphere was refreshingly unfussy, with chairs clothed in polite checks and walls washed in a dirty peach (occasionally blotted by some unfortunate art). All excess was concentrated on the frilly marble fireplace, decorated with brass candlesticks and a trophy cup of lilies. The staff boasted masterful French accents, perhaps in homage to Soho's historic French settlers (the Huguenots arrived in the 1680s).

After polishing off enormous flutes of champagne, my friend and I were tingling and hungry. The modest menu--six starters, eight mains, nothing over £20--changed daily, owing to Corrigan's long-standing devotion to seasonal fare. Cooking what's fresh and nearby is the kind of "new idea" only a bunch of city-dwellers could have. To someone who grew up without electricity in the fields of County Meath, it’s obvious. "The French have their terroir," he is fond of saying, "well, I have the bog."

Still, we're a long way from poacher's swag. There was pan-fried foie gras with pineapple carpaccio; oyster and almond gazpacho; duck with fennel and orange marmalade; roast monkfish with curried mussels and cauliflower beignet. We agonised over our choices. I decided on the ham-hock croquette and grilled wild salmon with salsify tagliatelle, while my friend chose the chicken-liver parfait with bacon brioche and beef loin with snail and garlic risotto.

As a reward for all our decision-making, we were promptly served a vaguely Spanish "amusette": a moist oyster morsel wrapped in tangy onion custard, with a sliver of rich jabugo ham and a splash of gazpacho.

Everything was superb, befitting a Michelin-starred kitchen. My bold, flavourful salmon bore no resemblance to the pallid, fatty farmed version that tends to be served these days; the delicacy of the salsify, intertwined with beguilingly soft homemade pasta, set it off beautifully. A cider jelly offered a lick of sharpness to the chicken liver's creamy decadence, while the salty, strong ham-hock gave shape to the otherwise gentle croquette (though this might have been better paired with Manzanilla sherry, rather than the Brouilly recommended by our waitress). Le Gavroche’s Michel Roux once said he'd eat an old boot if it had been cooked by Richard Corrigan. After sampling his beef with snail, garlic and rice, so would I–and pay for the privilege.

I have always appreciated what Lindsay House represented. This was Soho's gourmet side: it was not about getting drunk, like the French House, or getting in, like the Colony Club. It was not flashy, self-consciously witty or ostentatiously hammered (although the wine list was a marvel, and included two of the best suppliers in London, Liberty Wines and Les Caves de Pyrène). Really, it was all about the food. "He who does not mind his belly will hardly mind anything else," warned Samuel Johnson. Corrigan minds, fiercely, and was prepared to sweat it out in a titchy Georgian-era kitchen as proof.

Plenty of people have filtered through Soho with complete disregard for their bellies, some of them geniuses. But gastronomic appreciation is in itself a kind of genius--those who think that talent functions better under-nourished must either be unsure of their abilities, or have permanently doused their tastebuds with substandard booze. Under Corrigan and his like, cooking is an artform, as much a clever and subtle interplay of medium and experimentation as art or literature. And as with any artform, context counts.

We are sorry for Lindsay House's troubles: that cramped kitchen, the expensive lease and, most of all, Corrigan's waning loyalty to the area. His restaurant will be sadly missed, but this final feast felt like an appropriate wake.

Having savoured our last exquisite bite, we wandered out into the rare English sunshine, splendidly full and buzzing with booze. We wove for a few moments in the sodden footsteps of Soho's many revellers, before crossing the boundary back into the roaring fug of our own century.

Picture credit: Lindsay House

(Nina Caplan is Arts Editor of Time Out London. Her last piece for More Intelligent Life was about giving up alcohol for a month.)