Rambutan, London: ‘Ignore the siren song of the small plate’ — restaurant review

Rambutan serves Sri Lankan diaspora cooking in Borough Market. Its opening in March was keenly anticipated, widely publicised and has been unanimously praised by everyone in the food world with an opinion and access to a keyboard. I’m late to the party by comparison and, to be perfectly honest, that’s a problem in itself. It’s almost impossible that any place could live up to that sort of reputation, and it tends to put a reviewer in a hypercritical mode so, though every dish I ate was well thought out and beautifully executed, I was left with that feeling every writer desperately loathes — “good but not stellar”. Let me talk you through it, then try to explain why.

Devilled cashew nuts and plantain chips are certainly the most interesting bowl of snack shrapnel I’ve had in a while. They lined me up for docking with the first course, buttermilk-fried chicken served with grilled white bread and pol sambol, a kind of dried coconut sprinkle. It was a hefty little sandwich and might have made a reasonable lunch for a lesser man. Fortunately I am greater, so it was also necessary to try gundu dosas. These use the ferment of urad dal and rice flour rather differently to the standard pancake, forming it into little fried balls that puff to a light sponge. There is a dip (naturally) on the verdant and minty end of the spectrum, all of which conspired to an interval of what I can only describe as shameful gluttony.

Where to begin with a fruit curry? I think I was of that first generation of white British food lovers who scorned our parents’ “curries” with their slices of banana, grated coconut, sultanas and half a jar of mango chutney that etched the enamel off your teeth. Imagine then, the shattering cognitive dissonance of not only biting into a great tranche of fresh pineapple in a hot and sour sauce, but really enjoying every cell of it. My parents, who were also great fans of pineapple served on a stick with some nice sharp cheddar, would probably have approved.

Like most westerners, I initially thought of turmeric principally as a colourant and latterly as a broad-spectrum panacea drunk in high concentrations by superfood evangelicals and yogic loons. In fact, there’s wonder in the way Rambutan uses it, for bassy, wood and earth notes, haunted by the evanescent ghost of ginger. This added character to the tempered turmeric potatoes with pandan and, separately, made a deft base for Cornish mussels in a white curry broth, which incorporated all the shellfish juices and leveraged them to great effect.

One of Nigella’s early contributions to a grateful world was a chicken risotto using the entire carcass of a rotisserie chicken for stock, and all the leftover greasy bits harvested from it as the protein. It was, for a generation desperately hungry for the comforts of such things, a transformative concoction. The sticky chicken pongal rice at Rambutan achieves, if possible, an even better effect through the addition of coconut milk in spectacular abundance. The rice breaks down, stopping just short of porridge, merges and acquires everything the chicken and coconut have left to give. The chicken fragments poach and confit in their own filth. “Unguence is mine, sayeth the lord” (Romans 12:19). I’d honestly prescribe this gloop for anything from a tickly cough to a gunshot wound.

Coconut, lemongrass and pandan dal pulls off a similar textural effect: soft, comforting, “teeth optional” pulses humming quietly with sharper spices which counter the floral, quasi-vanilla fragrance of pandan.

Roti are not my area of speciality and the ones served here were closer to what I know as a parotta or paratha. No mere flatbread, but rolled transparent, oiled and infinitely delicately pleated in baking. One of the great laminated breads of world cookery and a whole bunch more interesting as a daily bread than your average croissant. Rip them asunder and dip them in anything even vaguely liquid on the table like it’s open season for carbs.

Finally there was Milo. Largely unknown in the UK, it’s a comforting and soporific blend of malt and chocolate — the Horlicks of the rest of the world. It’s also entirely wasted as a drink. All stocks, globally, should be seized and immediately converted to soft-serve ice cream as they do at Rambutan.

You see? It’s all good. Really good.

So what’s my problem? Weirdly, it’s the menu design.

It’s pitched as a sharing concept, but each individual dish is of generous proportions — enough, particularly at lunch, to stand as a more traditional starter or main. If you order on that basis, there’s sufficient variety; but once you share what’s actually quite a concise menu, there’s suddenly inevitable repetition. Turmeric, though transformational, follows turmeric. Pandan, though a thrilling novelty, follows pandan. Porridge texture, though gorgeously comforting, follows porridge texture. In fact, it has the feeling of a suite of very well-planned individual signature dishes. In the act of sharing, it becomes less exciting. Is it possible for something to be less than the sum of its parts? It certainly seems to me like a critical failure point in the otherwise unstoppable advance of small-plate sharing.

Definitely go to Rambutan. It’s an important new opening, and the food is very good. But choose your meal with care. Plan out your own narrative arc. Be brave and ignore the siren song of the small plate and instead focus in more tightly. That way you’ll have a great meal and, even better, you’ll have to go back again for anything you leave out.

Follow Tim on Twitter @TimHayward, on Instagram @timhayward and email him at [email protected]

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