Casa Fofó
Clapton, London
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It’s not easy to secure a reservation at this neighbourhood restaurant even with the tiny room supplemented by a covered outside space and cellar. Fashionable Dalston diners clearly relish the white-knuckle ride of a £65 surprise menu that might involve beef garum solids, fish scales or fermented tomato skins. Chef Adolfo de Cecco (previously of Pidgin) is heavily into fermentation. The eight courses including snacks, pre-dessert and petits fours are all delivered by the chefs themselves. Japanese milk bread with a swirl of monkfish liver is a good start. Two vegetable dishes come next, an interesting study in carrot (the carrots cooked in carrot juice, also dehydrated then rehydrated) and a tiny baked potato in an intensely cheesy and quite salty milk garum sauce. Ingredients are excellent, including a delicate pollock and superb eight-week aged dairy cow with a clever Jerusalem artichoke and umeboshi sauce. An ice-cream sandwich of candied nori with a parfait of beef garum solids and rhubarb sorbet, works quite well but could have been more sharply executed. Worried about finding a wine to match? There’s a £49 pairing and a list of two dozen natural wines chosen to suit the food: 'You can’t go wrong,' we’re told. We’re unfamiliar with many of the wines, so resort to Google; a strong sommelier and finer stemware would have enhanced the experience. Daring and at times difficult, Casa Fofó is one for those who like their supper with a side of intellectual stimulation.
