The Malago, North Street: 'When dinner on North Street goes south' - restaurant review
A Tesco Express produces more riots
It’s all change in the world of food writing this week. Jay Rayner announced he is leaving The Observer to form a triple threat with Marina O’Loughlin and Tim Hayward at the Financial Times. As the FT’s online content is all behind a paywall, many people online are lamenting the fact they’ll no longer be able to read Rayner’s work.
He makes an excellent point. Quality journalism does have to be paid for. It is either paid for by advertisers, deep-pocketed shareholders who likely impart a bias with their cash, or by readers. The latter model seems by far the best. That’s why there is an option, for those that are able, to pay £3.50 a month to receive this newsletter. It means that our writers can be paid for their work, the restaurants are paid for the food, and we don’t have anyone telling us what we can and can’t say. It’s really rather refreshing. Help us keep it that way. ~Meg
It’s very trendy, these days, for restaurants to big up their suppliers. You’ll see them emboldened on menus, tiled on Instagram and linked on websites. It’s part and parcel of being led by seasonal and local ingredients; providence cited regularly in case of nonbelievers. And entirely necessary to better connect punters with where their food has come from; after all if the recent COP is anything to go by things aren’t looking too hot on the planet-saving front.
For the diner, such transparency can be useful. A kitchen in which they peel prawns from Conscious Fish Company is likely to be more discerning than one that imports them frozen. Likewise, a Mevalco van perched on the pavement outside a restaurant suggests the olive oil will be worth dipping a hunk of Bristol Loaf bread into.
The Malago doesn’t specify where they get their ingredients from. However, those with an eagle eye will be able to see the supply chain for themselves by paying close attention during a busy service. Here they are certainly shopping local. So local, in fact, that a member of the bar staff was able to make it to North Street’s Tesco Express three times over the course of our meal*. Each time he returned with various groceries stuffed perilously into the pouch of his hoody, like an overgrown joey, and delivered straight to the kitchen. Low budget Deliver-roo much?
Had anything edible arrived at our table within the first hour of our visit, there’s a good chance we would have been busy picking apart our food and wouldn’t have noticed this. But as it was, the hour we spent waiting to be served even a platter of stale bread (£5) was just the right amount of time to develop a healthy grump. Even the most amateur baker could have concocted a nicer loaf in the time this took to arrive.
This particular North Street dinner only went south from there. The world’s most unappetising-looking buttermilk chicken wings (£10.50) surprisingly didn’t taste very nice, doused as they were in a ranch reminiscent of stomach acid.
Unshucked, oily scallops (2 for £10) were seasoned with matchstick crisps, chimichurri and grit. Two of the three would have been enough, but like some kind of overbearing Black Friday deal we weren’t given the luxury of choice.
Mapo tofu (£10.50) was testament to every chef who has confidently put something on a menu to make themself seem worldly and current despite having no idea how to make it. See also: katsu being served in a Mexican and cannelloni in a French bistro.
Miso butter hispi cabbage (£4.5) was more overcooked than Jeremy Clarkson’s inheritance tax misery and slimier than the friendship between the president-elect and the biggest ego in tech.
Almost successful were pork croquettes (£9) and chicken parmo with creamed corn, beetroot and kalettes (£22); surprising given the breast had come straight from Tesco. Maybe it was Tesco Finest. In 90% of cases, chicken thigh is a far superior cut than breast, and juicy leg meat would have just about tipped this into mediocrity. Presumably, Tesco had run out of thigh. To be fair, so had The Malago.
The pork croquettes were denied true fatty, crisp, piggy greatness by having lingered too long on the pass. Being served with lime mayo probably didn’t help either.
The irony of all of this is that The Malago had been chosen on this particular Saturday because rumour (Instagram) had it that the head chef was leaving and we were keen to try his food before his departure. We dragged heavy feet back through the door, unsatisfied and miserable; like City fans trudging home in the sleet after being defeated for the fifth game in a row.
The silver lining in this car crash is that The Malago now has a clean slate on which to start over. Like the millions of people setting up their Bluesky accounts having abandoned Twitter - though born out of ash, it does represent a phoenix-like chance to reinvent oneself.
The chef in question can also make a fresh start. Apparently he’s going to BANK in Totterdown. He’s in for a treat; their Tesco Express is literally across the road.
*A meal which was on Saturday 9 November - before the chef in question left, despite his protests on social media. Further evidenced by the below comment - PXandTarts was in fact the person with me for the above review.
Last Updated 27 November.
All words and photos by Meg Houghton-Gilmour
The Malago, 220 North St, BS3 1JD
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re Jay Rayner’s move to the FT, his comments are an entirely predictable as well as understandable attempt to justify the move. While he refers to the business models both of the papers he’s leaving and going to, he's silent on his own. Quite reasonably so, as it's his business not ours. So we don't know how much the Observer group paid him, although it's a pound to a penny he won't have moved to a lesser salary.
I won't be following him to the FT. I pay The Observer group's subscription and will not be buying a second.
Superb review and that's now on my "avoid at all costs" list. Speaking of costs though, while I agree that journalism needs to be paid for, I really can't justify £39 a month for the FT so I'm either going to have to forgo Jay's writing or see if the local library gets a daily copy and try and read it there...