Food and Drink

I seem to have a talent for choosing to review a place at just the moment the kitchen goes into meltdown. This was the case at Young’s trendy Waterfront bar and restaurant in Battersea. Like Elvis, Head Chef Samir El Amni, a Ramsay protégé and Roux brothers’ darling (if other reviews on this place are to be believed) has most definitely left the building. Firstly the positives. The place looks stylish and cool. It’s a mix of cocktail lounge and wine bar meets gastro pub. Stripped floors, lots of chrome, funky light shades, plenty of leather, and outside seating which gives stunning views of the river. As you’d expect with a Young’s venture, the beer is well-kept and varied, the wine list well-chosen and the staff are friendly, knowledgeable and eager to please. It’s a mystery then how the food could be allowed to be quite this bad. According to the website, the kitchen is no longer staffed by a Ramsay protégé, but to be honest that’s fairly obvious from food. Whoever’s in charge now appears to like the ping of a microwave and purchasing the charcuterie selection and chicken liver parfait at the cold meat counter in Morrisons. A Focacia pizza board took me back to the heady days of Findus frozen foods and a steak and kidney pie needed a road drill to access it and a teaspoon to devour its meagre contents. It was shocking. And all the more so for having been served up in a Young’s establishment where you’d usually expect creative, fresh and quality food. I hope this is simply a temporary glitch in the kitchen, because judging by the meagre number of patrons on a Wednesday night, the ping of the microwave has already alerted the residents of SW11.