Institute of Contemporary Arts

"There’s something wonderfully British about one of London’s best restaurants moving into one of its best galleries and nobody normal, really, knowing a bloody thing about it happening. The ICA has been about longer than almost all of the condiments in your fridge. It’s welcomed the likes of the Chapman brothers, Robert Mapplethorpe and The Clash over the years, so you’d think it would be a go-to for everyone in the capital. But it isn’t. It’s hidden in plain sight on the Mall, that bit of London that no Londoner ever wants to set foot in. So who does it welcome into its kitchen? Rochelle Canteen of course. The restaurant inside the grounds of an old East London school that you have to buzz into? Yep, that’s the one. There’s an air of quiet brilliance about both of these institutions and it makes their pairing perfect. So perfect that we like this Rochelle just as much as the original. If there’s a better marriage of public institutions in London, we’re yet to find it. The indoors of the ICA makes for a lovely light (and white) space and the food at Rochelle is full of lovely vegetables, meats, salads and stews. Bread is labelled as bread here. We’re not told what kind or how they’ve made it. They don’t even mention the butter. Both are delicious. At no point is there anything to suggest you’re eating some London’s best food in one of its best galleries. To be honest, it’s a surprise they even put their name on the menu. This modesty runs through everything they do. The main menu rotates daily, because there’s no one show-off item that they feel the need to produce night after night. You could eat a stew here that changes your life and not see it again for six months. Oh well. Come for a slice of cake and a cup of tea, and you may sit adjacent to the couple having a three course anniversary meal. It won’t seem odd at all. That’s just the way they do things. Here’s another example: towards the end of our meal on one visit, our waiter came over and asked if we had finished. Technically we had been finished for a while. Clearly, though, he’d been watching us wiping up bits of green sauce with our fingers and break off remnants of pie crust to soak in the remaining juice, like the degenerates we are, and so he waited. This is what makes Rochelle great. He then asked, “was everything okay?”. Everything was more than okay, he knew it, but he still asked. And this is what makes Rochelle brilliant. If you’re looking for a place where the food is how it should be, if you know what we mean, then look no further. We can’t help but think that this is what eating is meant to be: shareable without being ‘a small plates restaurant’, filling without being a fry up, elegant without a gel in sight. Come here for lunch, come here for dinner, come here for a nibble and a glass of wine, come here when it’s shut so you get annoyed and know you have to come back. This is a British masterclass in modesty, on The Mall. Food Rundown photo credit: Karolina Wiercigroch Radishes And Smoked Cod’s Roe Normally radishes are eaten out of sheer empty fridge desperation. Here you’re using the leaves to wipe the plate clean of the addictively creamy cod’s roe. Braised Cuttlefish And Fennel Stew If publicly acceptable we would bathe in this broth for the rest of our lives. photo credit: Karolina Wiercigroch Mutton And Laverbread Pie Any pie here is a revelation. This one had the crispiest of suet crusts and below it a minty, meaty pool for the mutton to paddle in. photo credit: Karolina Wiercigroch Salad Yes, it’s a bowl of green and pink leaves with herbs and a few radishes. It’s fresh, it’s bitter, it’s crunchy, it’s sweet, it’s soft, it’s tart, it’s salty: it’s perfect. Reblochon And New Potatoes Potatoes with a wedge of melted French cheese. It’s basically the coronary we hope to bow out to. Brownie Ice Cream Chocolate brownie ice cream and shortbread. Was it nice? It was chocolate brownie ice cream and buttery shortbread. It was inhaled like the air around us." - Jake Missing

"Revolutionary and cutting-edge art gallery, the ICA shows innovative practice in film, photography and digital art. Founded by a group of radical artists, writers and scientists in 1946 as an antidote to the ideological confines of the Royal Academy, its live-by edict is the promotion of bleeding-edge art and culture. In its time, it has seen such notorieties as Pablo Picasso, T.S. Eliot, Stravinsky, Jackson Pollock, Georges Braque, Yves Klein, Jacques Derrida, Francis Bacon, Meyer Shapiro, Guy Debord, Cindy Sherman, Yoko Ono, Gerhard Richter, Damien Hirst, Vivienne Westwood, Ian McEwan and Yinka Shonibare, and launched defining exhibitions in Pop Art, Op Art, Brutalism, Brit Art and Digital Art, including the world's first cybercafé. Also, a very good bar at its centre." - dn&co.

"A winning home straight has its key tenets: the triumphant waltz to the finish line, the flood of relief (and cramp), and the victory toast. There are few options for the latter as good, reliable and within stumbling distance as Rochelle Canteen at the ICA, serving up seasonal deliciousness for a light finish and pies of serious heft to aid recovery." - Andrew Leitch, James Hansen