We sample the sights, tastes and sounds of Esca
It is hard to know where to look when you first enter Esca: the meringues piled up on the counter in front of you, the wiry lighting installation above your head or the floor-to-ceiling shelves to your left with their distinctive sliding ladder to give customers access to the jams, teas and oils stacked up high. Every corner of this delicatessen-cum-restaurant on Westfield’s Southern Terrace seems to be packed with all sorts of treats and delicacies giving a very inviting first impression.
Once you start to think about ordering your lunch, you realise there is something slightly chaotic and carefree about Esca: no menus, not much information about what each dish contains and no clear system for ordering your food. Instead, you have to rely on your senses...and ask lots of questions.
Walk past the salads in the first chiller, and around the corner you get to the hot food counter. Here, the dishes are laid out in front of you with simple labels identifying them: ‘fish pie’, ‘chicken pie’, ‘polenta bake’, ‘bangers and mash’ ‘lamb shanks’. Other than this, there is little in the way of description and a member of staff behind the counter had to retreat to the kitchen to find out for us what the topping was on the fish pie (it was mashed potato). Next, we wanted to know what it would be served with. A green salad, was the answer. We could have gone on with our questioning (How much was the dish? Were there any hot vegetables? Where should we order our drinks?) but, despite the extreme helpfulness of the staff, we were getting hungry.
So, we settled for an eclectic mix of fish pie (£7.25), an Egyptian dish called koushari (£7.25) and a portion of bangers and mash (£7.95). Although the food looked as though it was being displayed on hot-plates, the staff put all of the dishes we had ordered into a microwave before serving them to us and almost inevitably, while two out of our three meals were piping hot, the third was lukewarm and had to be sent back for another blast.
If you are a fussy eater or have special dietary requirements, you might find the lack of information a bit of a problem. However, I did enjoy my twice-microwaved fish pie in the end without having to know whether it was gluten-free, egg-free, GM-free or whether it had been prepared in an environment in which nuts were present. All I knew about it was that it contained fish (tuna, we guessed) and mashed potato.
Most of the food on offer was European but koushari is a traditional Egyptian dish, which, in its original form, comprises rice, macaroni and brown lentils, topped with a tomato sauce and caramelised onions. The Esca version was jazzed-up with chicken, nuts and a spicy sauce. While a bit of a carb overload (and in Egypt it is often served with bread), this was good and tasty winter food.
The long tables and benches inside Esca look as though they are meant to encourage communal dining. A nice idea, but human nature (in London, at least) dictates the opposite and there was no table-sharing going on when we visited. Instead, newly-arrived diners could be seen holding their trays of food, scanning the restaurant for a free table, or half table if that was all that was available. The tables themselves have a homely feel, laden with all sorts of condiments, including olive oil, tomato ketchup, honey and an outsize slab of butter, and are decorated with stylish giant vases.
One whole wall, meanwhile, is fitted with floor-to-ceiling shelves, packed with all sorts of teas, types of pasta, olive oil and things in jars bearing labels such as ‘pickled walnuts’ and ‘raspberry and lavender preserve’. Otherwise, the walls are bare, in that there are no pictures hanging on them. Instead, they act as a canvas for the wiry lighting installation which casts its spaghetti-like shadows onto the cream surfaces. To go with these modern, arty surroundings, Esca was filled with the sounds of the 1980s on the day we visited: Electric Dreams, The Lady in Red and the theme tunes from Fame and Ghostbusters were some of the tunes playing. Incongruous? Very. Enjoyable? You bet.
For dessert, the cake counter offered a bewildering array of goodies including everything from the thoroughly 1980s Black Forest gateau to the thoroughly modern mango cheesecake. We went for a piece of croissant pudding (£3.10) which was like a rich man’s bread pudding and was the perfect antidote to a freezing cold January afternoon: warm, filling comfort food. We also tried the raspberry and chocolate truffle (£3.30), which was more of an antidote to post-Christmas, credit crunch blues. Just one taste of the thick, buttery chocolate was enough for an instant lift but it was so rich that between the three of us, we were unable to finish it. Naturally, it would be criminal to let such good quality chocolate go to waste and end up in landfill so, purely in the interests of the environment, we wrapped the remains into serviettes and smuggled a little chocolatey parcel out with us.
I am sure I will make it back here again, perhaps not for the £7.95 bangers and mash but more for coffee and cakes or to buy some of those interesting-looking jars to take home with me.
Dinner for three at Esca, including three main dishes, two desserts, coffee and wine came to £37.40.
Yasmine Estaphanos
11 January 2009
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