ILLUSTRATION BY ALEX GREEN FOR THE SUNDAY TIMES MAGAZINE
The odd thing about London is that some of the nicest parts contain almost nowhere decent to eat. Take the nearest aspirational postcode to my neck of the woods: Hampstead, an area so charming it has become a national byword for arty, literary poshness. It’s riddled with houses with £3 million price tags and dogs with £300 haircuts. But can you get a respectable dinner? No. Not unless you go to the local curry house, Paradise. But it opened in 1969 and nobody has bothered to challenge it since.
I’m perplexed as to why these areas exist. Surely there can be no shortage of well-heeled locals happy to fork out for a decent bottle of white and a plate of girolles? Barnes in southwest London is another such location, or so its residents tell me. Yes, sure, it has what was AA Gill’s favourite restaurant, Riva, and there are a couple of good pubs and a Rick Stein — although anyone living east of Chelsea will say you might as well go to the original in Padstow if you’re heading that far west anyway. But that doesn’t feel nearly enough for such a manicured area.
The poor local residents have been unable to leave the area since before Magna Carta, when Hammersmith Bridge — which serves as their pathway to the rest of the city — closed for repairs. It hasn’t reopened since.
What a relief, then, to hear that a properly good modern European restaurant has opened in Barnes: the Waterman’s Arms. It’s the excuse I’ve been looking for to take the editor and his partner out. They live nearby and — as Josh, the boyfriend, so kindly put it — “It’s harder to fire someone who has bought you dinner.”
The Waterman’s Arms, ‘a properly good modern European restaurant’
So I arrive pathetically early at this beautiful little place on the river. Outside, it looks like a pub — albeit one painted in the Farrow & Ballesque green that has infected the Cotswolds, and usually serves as an early warning that you’ll soon be muttering, “How much?”
Inside, we could be in a rural French bistro: dark wood, wine bottles lining the walls and a chalkboard offering various cuts of beef and fish specials (skate and gurnard). The editor tells us this used to be a branch of chain disappointment merchants Strada. See, I told you there’s nothing good around here. Although I didn’t tell him that.
To start we have panisse: little fritters usually made with chickpea flour but here with fava beans, which gives them a pleasingly savoury edge. On top, shavings of Corra Linn, an umami-dense Scottish hard cheese that is ubiquitous at trendy restaurants at the moment. The imprisoned residents of Barnes, of course, do not know this. I’m a bit bored with Corra Linn; they won’t be.
Unlike every other modern European place in the country, the Waterman’s Arms doesn’t suggest you share. We do so anyway. Sardine fillets (also deeply fashionable) with white beans and monk’s beard and a lovely, tangy basil sauce. A posh open toastie topped with deep, decadent beef ragu and scamorza. A salad of blood orange, thin shavings of ricotta and puntarelle — long, stringy chicory that’s less bitter than its more famous red-leafed relative.
Sardine fillets with white beans and monks beard in a basil sauce
Pork collar being cooked over coals
We order all the mains: pork collar with pigskin ragu, and semolina gnocchi with a fresh, raw tomato sauce and dollops of nutty, melted Italian cheese. It’s rare for gnocchi to taste new or exciting but they’ve managed it here. Then a paella-like seafood rice with prawns, mussels and red snapper. It is by popular consensus the best thing we eat all evening. Infuriatingly, you’ll have to take their word for it due to my body’s rejection of mussels and all their fellow travellers. Overwhelmed by envy, I try a tiny bit of rice from the side of the bowl. It’s sultry, saffrony, slightly dangerous.
Dessert is a charming oat and almond cake, semi-savoury with a butterscotch sauce and a dollop of clotted cream. The boss leaves so pleased with his meal that I consider asking for a pay rise. Then I remember the bill I’m about to put on expenses and decide against it.
★★★★☆
thewatermansarms.co.uk
375 Lonsdale Road, London SW13 9PY
