Fay Maschler reviews Stanley's: Say it with flowers... a fascinator of herbs for the crab, petals on the beef

1/6
Fay Maschler3 September 2020

There is a theory that people who live in Chelsea never eat outside the borough. They just, you know, can’t. Fortunately for them, Hugh Stanley, nephew of the Earl of Derby and scion of the horse-racing family, opens a restaurant this summer with a large terrace that allows a safe space for social distancing — should someone from another borough wander in. 

Located down some steep steps and then up another set, it is behind the popular Vietnamese noodle restaurant Phât Phúc meaning, as you probably know, Happy Buddha. 

The strong temptation to enjoy a quick bowl of their excellent pho is made easier to forgo by the beckoning bowers of white flowers — on closer inspection artificial — and the apparently comfortable but actually ergonomically weird seating. 

Chef at Stanley’s is Olivia Burt, a MasterChef: The Professionals finalist and, perhaps more meaningfully, also a Roux Scholarship finalist. A previous post was at Simon Rogan’s Fera at Claridge’s. The liberal use of edible flowers could be attributed to that. They decorate a first course of beef tartare also garnished with blobs of smoked egg yolk, which add a pleasing unctuous quality, but seasoning is wan. We ask for salt, pepper and lemon juice to beef it up. Crab, horseradish, green apple has white crab meat sporting a fascinator of herbs drowning in tart apple juice.

Drowning in tart apple juice: crab, horseradish, green apple
Matt Writtle

With only three choices in each course it seems perverse to offer Dexter beef as a main-course option. We share roasted halibut with ribbons of yellow courgette, lemon verbena and more flowers. The side dish of “warm summer greens” turns out disappointingly to be a small bowl of sugar snap peas. 
I read too late that the MasterChef judges were full of praise for Olivia’s plums and custard dessert and try instead a creamy ball infused with fig leaf propped up with shards of meringue and scattered with flowers. 

At lunch another day — a calmer time — my companion observes that the small plates we share read like a top of the pops of London’s vanguard restaurants: potted shrimp crumpets, crispy prawns with sriracha emulsion, Westcombe Cheddar doughnuts. Best, and least carby of those we try, is Hen of the Woods mushrooms in a light batter with smoked mustard cream. 

The bar is an important part of Stanley’s, and easy-going all-day hours accommodate the flâneur that a sunny day brings out in most of us. Cocktails are carefully constructed, Coates & Seely English sparkling wines delight and the involvement of Lea & Sandeman informs a tempting wine list concluding with Château Lafite Rothschild 2008 at £450. 

Later my lunch chum writes to say that if Harry Enfield’s character Tim Nice But Dim were to be reincarnated as a restaurant, it would be Stanley’s.

Fay's Favourites — Courtyards

Rochelle Canteen

Bright-eyed cooking in a hidden, arty enclave.

Arnold Circus E2. rochelleschool.org

Mazi

Cleverly evolved Greek food beneath vines.

12 Hillgate Street W8. mazi.co.uk

Fish, Wings & Tings

Brian Danclair’s Caribbean small and big tings and the eponymous drink.

Brixton Village SW9. fishwingsandtings.com