74 Charlotte Street By Ben Murphy. Discover A Magical Culinary Journey.

Anthea Gerrie Relives Food And Drink Memories From Around The World At 74 Charlotte Street By Ben Murphy

Some chefs call their restaurants after themselves, others name them for the address, but one of London’s most noted rising stars went the whole hog with 74 Charlotte Street by Ben Murphy. Perhaps, as the legendary eatery on which he built his own reputation was named for its own address, Murphy needed to let customers know he was now performing culinary magic on the other side of London.

Four months after Ben Murphy decamped to W1 with more or less his entire team, a loyal clientele has followed him from Kensington’s Launceston Place to Fitzrovia’s foodiest thoroughfare, perhaps inspired by his swift inclusion in the Michelin Guide to London so soon after opening. Diners will not be disappointed by the latest occupant of TV chef Monica Galetti’s former restaurant, who has worked in France and the USA but is bringing elements of dishes originating in further-flung locations to his highly eclectic menu.

My own lunch there surprised me by evoking memories from Mexico City, rural Sweden and any number of modern Israeli restaurants, though this chef is too young to have shared my experience of the Mexican and Swedish originals I enjoyed before he was born. In Mexico it was a particular margarita rather than 74 Charlotte Street by Ben Murphy’s Martini@74 (£16) which came ice-cold and, like that never-forgotten margarita, poured in two servings to retain the icy temperature.

This Uber-chilled martini makes a strong case for not skipping the very fairly-priced cocktails; not being a gin drinker, I enjoyed a fragrant jasmine mai tai (£14) based on white rum and lemongrass-infused tea while my other half savoured the martini he eked out in tiny sips because he was so reluctant to let it go.

We were soon in today’s Israeli culinary realm watching Milk Bread with hummus whizz by to another table in a bright, blonde semi-basement dining room full of fellow late lunchers throughout a sunny February afternoon. The kubaneh served at Claro and Coal Office, the London outposts of different Israeli chefs, came to mind, though as a big hummus fan, Murphy claims this particular bread course as his own.

And while we admired it, we were glad we eschewed a loaf of our own, sharpening our appetites instead with another of the three opening bites priced at £9. Our shared Egg & Soldiers may have been minimal – a single egg in its brown shell held in an elegant porcelain hand – but boy, was it rich, packed with chicken liver parfait topped with a delicate egg cream emulsion.

Just as well to have enough appetite to do full justice to the substantial squab starter (£25), a divided roast pigeon with a tiny leg coated in toasted wild rice. Accompaniments included a delicious dab of bitter orange puree, while a side of braised celeriac expertly mandolined into a rectangle of petals could have been dreamt up by Eric Frechon, the three-starred Michelin chef under whom Murphy worked at Le Bristol hotel in Paris. It was a small and elegantly fragmented dish, but with its rich jus satisfying enough to serve as a main. A glass of Brouilly (£11), that hefty Beaujolais cru, was a fine accompaniment.

I chose salt-baked celeriac from a set menu startlingly well-priced at £30 for two courses, £35 for three, because that dish held a special memory for me. When Ben Murphy was still growing up I travelled to remote southern Sweden to taste the food of two-Michelin-starred chef Daniel Berlin. On a frosty February night, he brought a charcoal-grilled celeriac out of the kitchen himself, slicing the peeled tuber into a bowl of melted sheep’s cheese and waxing poetic:“This is what we dream of all winter, the first vegetable to come out of the ground.”

Murphy’s celeriac is less earthy and more decorative, a delicate half-moon topped with a teaspoon of truffle ragu and a snowstorm of shredded pecorino, delicious but not a bit derivative of Berlin’s love letter to spring.

We were hungry for our main course 90 minutes after arrival – slow, although exquisite, service was one of very few downsides of a lunch which took 3 1/2 hours to complete, perhaps because we had opted for one of two complex signature mains designed to be shared. A lobster pie, it was somewhat denser than expected, big pieces of lobster anchored with layers of prawn mousse beneath feather-light flaky pastry, served with a refillable pitcher of rich lobster bisque to moisten the pie as required.

A big commitment at £90, it’s a dish for confirmed seafood addicts only which made me rather miss the thrill of prising lobster from shell, although the little salad served alongside was exquisitely assembled and dressed. Cheers to the sommelier who recommended a beautiful cabernet-merlot blend from Australia’s Margaret River (£12) to accompany the pie, far less pedestrian than a more predictable chardonnay.

It’s always a challenge for chefs to surprise and delight with dessert after show-stopping mains so customers leave feeling uplifted, and Murphy’s black forest gateau souffle was a tour de force. Chocolate sauce poured into the warm, perfectly risen eggy centre and a scoop of cherry ripple ice-cream served on top brought the familiar flavours together, albeit with a totally different texture from the eponymous rich cake.

A “lemon” dessert actually incorporating Asian citrus pieces and mousse within a lemon-coloured shell made of white chocolate was clever and refreshing, but the real showstoppers were the digestifs. This is the place to commend the lovely Elvira, the restaurant manager who insisted we try a Viognier Martini infusing the aromatic white wine with vodka(£14) and a divine Yuzu Gimlet based on Yuzu sake.

Having enjoyed watching the room darken from the sunlight dappled over the basement garden to twilight as lunch stretched from our 2pm arrival to 5.30pm, when we finished the coffee that followed dessert and post-prandials, we felt the afternoon had been an event, as it clearly was for a neighbouring table decorated by ladies in hats with their smartly-dressed menfolk, while a party of business lunchers was still going strong when we left. Come to 74 Charlotte Street By Ben Murphy with plenty of time to spare and prepare to be wowed by Ben Murphy’s inventiveness and Elvira’s loving service.