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Written by
Nick Lander
13 Feb 2016
Edible Noble Rot
At the end of my second dinner at Noble Rot, the wine bar and restaurant on Lamb's Conduit
Street in Bloomsbury just round the corner from London's Great Ormond Street Hospital, our
guest and the second American woman I had dined with there, asked me about the origins of its
name.
I explained, as visitors to this site probably know, that it was the English translation of the
French expression pourriture noble, the grey fungus that attacks ripe grapes and is responsible
for deliciously sweet wines such as Barsac and Sauternes in Bordeaux.
Noble Rot aims to be both a wine bar and a restaurant. It opened twice, the first time on 13
November 2015 three weeks after the new owners had taken it over from David Allcorn, who
had run it as Vats wine bar since the 1970s. It then traded until 23 December before closing
until mid January, when it reopened after a lick of paint, with a new, pristine bar close to the
entrance, softer lighting and new artwork on the walls. It belongs to two individuals (pictured),
ex-Roberson Mark Andrew, 36 (left), and Dan Keeling, 40, for whom this place is the second
manifestation of their passion for wine.
The first is the wine magazine that bears the same name and is shortly to launch its tenth
quarterly issue with an interview with the journalist Caitlin Moran. This was their first dip into the
wine world, having met at a tasting of Granges des Pères, the cult Languedoc wine, which
Andrew organised in 2010 while at Roberson Wines [attended by me and reported in Grange des
Pères v Mas de Daumas Gassac – JR]. Keeling had spent over 15 years in the music business
but, having been MD of Island Records, he was kicked upstairs to be a bean counter. Not being
very good at counting beans, he was ready for a change of career.
Keeling brought with him a vital friendship. Through a family connection, he had got to know
Stephen Harris, the chef/proprietor of the highly regarded Sportsman restaurant in Seasalter on
the north Kent coast. It was Harris who, partly out of his own love of good wine, encouraged
them to look for a site. Buoyed too by the success of Clown Bar and Vivant in Paris, Terroirs and
The 10 Cases in London, they found backers and then went out looking for a potential site, only
to be immediately discouraged. They had no track record; no covenant to satisfy the banks; and
no brand name easily recognisable outside wine circles.
Then good fortune intervened. Last August they were shown Vats and were struck by its charms
and history including an early-18th-century wine cellar in the basement. 'This place has
witnessed a lot of drinking over the years', Keeling observed, 'having become a haunt for many
of the surgeons and lawyers who practise nearby. Our initial aim was to improve the quality of
what is in their glasses.'
With chef Paul Weaver, they have done a pretty good job of improving the food, although one
structural challenge remains.
Admittedly it does not get in the way of enjoying two of the menu's attractions, the bread and
the Spanish ham and the coppa that they are beginning to cure in-house. But it is the bread that
at £4 a serving no one should overlook. These range from a focaccia as baked at The Sportsman
to a soda bread with black treacle as per a recipe from Richard Corrigan and a sourdough baked
according to Mickael Jonsson of Hedone restaurant in Chiswick.
These and the Whitstable oysters and a few other cold dishes are all available in the wine-bar
section at the front of the building, which, with its black wooden panelling and fireplace, has
something of the air of an old Amsterdam coffee house. Behind the bar is a bigger room down
three steps that is the restaurant.
It is here that the structural problem becomes apparent. On my first visit it was my main course,
a fillet of halibut braised in oxidised 1998 Batard-Montrachet, that was served lukewarm at best.
On my second, having decided on an unusual first course of a thick soup made from monkfish
and oysters, I encountered the same phenomenon. This did not seem to affect our main
courses, which included a particularly pleasing Comté tart, fillets of John Dory and several
generous slices of pork belly. But given that their kitchen is in the basement and the food has to
be carried up, this is something that ought to be rectified. Using covers could do it, for example.
They certainly seem to be aware of the downstairs temperature. On our last visit, during a
particularly cold spell, our friendly waitress greeted us by saying, we thought, that since their
salads were quite cold we should think about ordering them straight away. We subsequently
realised that what she actually said was that as their cellars were quite cold, if we wanted a red
wine we should order one straight away.
We did, choosing a gorgeously rich 2010 Barolo Serralunga from Giovanni Rosso (£59) from a
clearly laid out and keenly priced list that alongside an exceptional range of wines by the glass,
offers great incentives to return.
Noble Rot 51 Lamb's Conduit Street, London WC1N 3NB; tel +44 (0)20 7242 8963