The White Asparagus brings seasonal and foraged food with an emphasis on sustainability to The Cuckoo N1 in Islington.
Germany and Britain aren’t so different; both our cuisines are the butt of jokes around European dinner tables. But just as Brits don’t only eat roast beef sandwiches and fish and chips, Germans aren’t munching on bratwurst and potato salad for every meal. Aiming to change the way we see not only German food, but also dining in general, Sebastian Delamothe has brought his The White Asparagus dining company to The Cuckoo N1 in Islington.
The chef, who learnt his trade in Michelin-starred kitchens and on super yachts, has taken a different approach for his own residency. Combining white asparagus from his family farm in northern Germany with seasonal produce, Delamothe also forages a lot of ingredients, aiming to make his cooking as sustainable as possible. Designed as sharing plates, the menu features dishes from Delamothe's background along with British classics, such as the Devon crab salad (£9.50) and northern German cold cuts (£8.90) which was a plate of three different types of charcuterie including a meaty blood sausage and thin serrano-like ham. Grandma’s pate (£6.50) was thick and smokey with a sweet coulis and went best heaped on fruity rye bread (£3).
Main dishes are also sharing size and best made up with a few sides. Franken (£4.90) was two slabs of ham covered in a creamy hollandaise that we mopped up with crispy bratkartoffeln (£3) potatoes. The Hessen (£8.90) was chunks of Welsh steak cooked medium rare and covered in a sharp sauce made of nettles that had been foraged from Hampstead Heath. We had to try The White Asparagus' namesake, which gets its colour from being grown underground and thus avoiding sunlight, which was served in 400g (£5) or 800g (£9) portions. We finished with four cheeses (£7.80), which included a creamy blue, alongside more of the delicious rye bread.
Running until the end of June, The White Asparagus is available at The Cuckoo N1, 115 Hemingford Road, Islington, N1 1BZ, on Thursday - Sunday.
