40 Maltby Street, London SE1 – restaurant review

Of all the dishes we have at 40 Maltby Street, it’s the most unprepossessing that makes us sit up, blinking and gasping, “Wow, this is really, really good.” Pig’s head broth with cabbage dumplings: it doesn’t exactly bark “Sexxxxy!” in the way that maybe Dexter shortribs with mustard, or roast partridge with spinach, bacon and jerusalem artichoke tart might.

Under normal circumstances, it’s not a dish I’d ever order, either. Too ascetic for the sybaritic, greedy likes of me. But on a Friday lunchtime, there are only four dishes that aren’t charcuterie (pleasingly stiff and fatty Basque sausage studded with peppercorns, served with first-class sourdough baguette) or a selection of well-kept cheeses. So, in a spirit of what-the-hell, we order the lot. I expected that broth to be something along the lines of Japanese tonkotsu, gummy and milky with collagen from long-simmered bones. Instead, it’s a shimmering, limpid bouillon with an aroma of farmyard pork and a depth of flavour that makes you sip and swill it like a vintage wine. The cabbage rolls – crinkly savoy that retains its bite – contain a stuffing studded with fat chunks of floury chestnut, perhaps the ferrous suggestion of offal: a mouthful of astonishing length.

The food that issues from the postage-stamp-sized kitchen is all pretty much faultless: not a beat is missed. There are croquettes made from celeriac, their crisp exterior cracking to reveal a suave, silky filling that delivers a powerfully fragrant hit of root vegetable to the back of the throat. There’s a very Simon Hopkinson-esque salad of poached leeks with tiny brown shrimp paddling in an excellent, delicate, lemony mayonnaise. The quality of the shrimp is notable, yielding rather than chewy, meaty and marine. And grey mullet – again, something I’d never order voluntarily – is cooked so that its strong flavour is buffered by pleurettes (oyster mushrooms) and creamed fennel, its timing so precise it could happily masquerade as wild sea bass. It’s not a pretty plateful, but then neither are its surroundings.

I wrote about 40 Maltby Street for a, ahem, previous employer, voicing a degree of reluctance to share its joys because, during Maltby Street market’s trading hours, the place is jammed to the point of discomfort. Sophisticated cooking, dishes such as those shortribs and partridge, deserves better than splintery pallet tables and teetery stools facing into the wall when braying, canvas shopper-toting marketgoers are shunting into you every five minutes. So why go back? Blame my editor, a man who, in the words of Alan Partridge, has had more hot dinners than I’ve had hot dinners. He raves about the current chef: raves, I tell you. And when this grumpy chap waxes ravey, I prick up my ears.

He’s not wrong, of course: that chef is Stephen Williams, whose CV is littered with the high-end and award-winning (The Ledbury, The Harwood Arms), and not in a weaselly “I did a stage there”, but in actual proper chef or head chef mode. This might seem like a curious next move, but I’m guessing that, after the old fayn daynin, being given free rein in this railway tunnel – the trains rumbling overhead regularly ripple your Slovenian orange wine as if that T Rex from Jurassic Park is just round the corner – well, it must feel like the most delicious unfastening of whalebone stays.

I can think of no more pleasant way to play hooky on a Friday afternoon, compelled to try all the recommended wines by the glass (the place is owned by Gergovie Wines, who concentrate on the kind of punk-ethos winemaker who pooh-poohs additives and preservatives. We love the aforementioned Slovenian orange, and Tête de Bulle, an exhilarating François Dhumes sparkling chardonnay, and a fragrant pinot noir, Trois Bonhommes, from Marie and Vincent Tricot, and, oh, some other stuff. All of it, basically), and then stoating slightly pissedly towards the train, where you snore open-mouthed all the way home. And if there’s a chance to swing by Jose on Bermondsey Street en route, similarly rammed to the gunwhales during regular eating hours, for a plate of buttery, nutty melt-in-the mouth Ibérico de bellota ham and some lustrous verdejo, then so much the better. On a Friday lunchtime, devoid of the market’s ravening foodie hordes and with real card-carrying talent in the kitchen, 40 Maltby Street still feels like the insider secret it once was.

• 40 Maltby Street 40 Maltby Street, London SE1, 020-7237 9247. Open Lunch Fri & Sat, 12.30-2pm (3.30pm Sat), dinner Weds-Sat, 5.30-10pm. About £25-30 a head, plus drinks and service.

Food 7/10
Atmosphere 6/10
Value for money 8/10

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