Restaurateur Melody Adams has already proved her southern European culinary credentials with two of London’s greatest Spanish eating places, Donostia and Lurra, on the Marble Arch finish of Marylebone. Now she’s moved a bit of additional afield, not solely when it comes to location (close by Chiltern Road) but additionally inspiration: Maset specialises within the coastal cooking of the Occitanie area of southern France, which stretches from Montpellier to the Spanish border.
Wallpaper* dines at Maset, London
The temper: southern consolation
(Picture credit score: Images by L. Balay)
A ‘maset’ is a small stone constructing, initially utilized by winery employees to take shelter from the climate, now typically transformed into vacation boltholes. Parisian design studio Haddou Dufourcq has interpreted that as a pared-back home-from-home amidst the boutiques of Chiltern Road. Mild bounces off mirrors in an off-white house designed to appear to be a southern French bistro, full with partitions hung with works by French artists.
(Picture credit score: Images by L. Balay)
‘The delicacies locations nice significance on utilizing actual, well-sourced components,’ Adams says, ‘and we wished to comply with the identical philosophy by working with genuine supplies and references which have which means and historical past. For instance, the chairs are made in France from strong wooden, primarily based on an iconic Nineteen Fifties mannequin that was broadly utilized in seaside cafés and brasseries within the south of France. We hope it should evoke recollections for company who’ve hung out on these terraces.’
(Picture credit score: Images by L. Balay)
The meals: a Mediterranean voyage
(Picture credit score: Images by Frankie Payne)
The southern French meals shows Spanish, Italian and North African accents, too: suppose complete monkfish tail, marinated in preserved lemons and cooked on the bone and served sliced with sea beets and draped with lardo. There are additionally some Provençal interpolations – bouillabaisse croquettes, and pâtes au pistou, the Niçoise spinach pasta dish – plus breakfasts of socca pancakes and anchovy butter sourdough.
(Picture credit score: Images by Frankie Payne)
However it’s not all concerning the meals. ‘As in a typical French bistro,’ Adams says, ‘the bar is the center of the restaurant. We wished to reinterpret the traditional zinc bar, modernising it with stainless-steel whereas preserving its sculptural and imposing presence, making it a real signature of the house.’ Knock again lemon martinis and southern French wines, although a cloudy glass of pastis is essentially the most genuine factor to drink right here. Santé!
(Picture credit score: Images by Sarah Frances Kelley)
Maset is situated at 40 Chiltern St, London W1U 7LQ, UK
Supply: Wallpaper
