Elliot Hashtroudi, the chef at Camille in Borough Market, turns from regional France to the cooking of Britain and Ireland, in the former Club Gascon across the road from Smithfield meat market.
Elliot Hashtroudi is reported to have named his new restaurant after his grandmother, Betty Penhale, a home cook whose family history ran through Smithfield Market. The market is across the road from 57 West Smithfield, where B. Penhale opens in November, reportedly on the 16th. Hashtroudi’s great-grandmother is said to have worked there as a butcher.
Hashtroudi is head chef at Camille, whose menu travels through the regional cooking of France. For B. Penhale, the team is reported to be turning to the regional cooking of Britain and Ireland and to the dishes and rituals of Victorian dining. Whole carcasses will be butchered in the kitchen, with offal and lesser-known cuts on the menu.
The dishes named so far include stout-battered oysters with bone marrow and horseradish, smoked jellied eel, and turbot with shrimp sauce and laverbread. Tea and biscuits are to come as a course of their own, poured from antique teapots.
The former Club Gascon
For a generation the address was Club Gascon, Pascal Aussignac’s Michelin-starred restaurant. Aussignac has wished the new team “the same success that Club Gascon had over a generation”.
The reported plan is a 60-cover dining room and a six-seat bar kept for walk-ins, with its own chalkboard menu. Max Hancock, Camille’s head of wine, is writing a list built on British and Irish winemakers.
B. Penhale, 57 West Smithfield, London EC1A 9DS.
Discover more at b-penhale.co.uk