The King & Co.

5 Reviews on “The King & Co.”

• Kristine Diana Tsiknaki

  Quiet pub down the road from Clapham high street. On a Tuesday it is not very crowded and there’s lots of space to sit. The music was just David Bowie when I went as it was only days after his passing. There was a decent selection of drinks and in terms of food there seemed to be different kinds of cheese based finger food. I believe they had a specific cheese based pop up residency this month so that may vary according to the time you visit.I did like the atmosphere but I think it will be better in summer when you can also sit outside. If you want to avoid the crowds in the main Clapham bars it’s a good one to look out for. darcrose22albionadventures.blogspot.com

  April 24, 2016, 5:26 am

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• Vi Vian Woo

  Zoe’s Ghana Pop-up @ The King and Co, Clapham in this day and time in London’s dining action I find it quite absurd that a greedy pig like me has not tried Ghanaian cuisine. So when I was approached to attend a PR tasting session I jumped at the chance. Zoe Adjonyoh, the proprietor of Zoe’s Ghana Kitchen (ZGK), is taking residency at The King and Co, Clapham for two months with her contemporary twist on traditional Ghanaian flavours. It is amazing how supperclubs have transformed and the chefs have been given the opportunity to cookway from their kitchens, in a proper restaurant scenario. With my own restaurant previously, I learnt very quickly that cooking in a restaurant is very, very different to catering for a private dinner party. Yup, I had and did learn fast. Zoe’s Ghanaian food is available for the whole month of April and May everyday. Brunch is only available on Sundays with dishes like spiced black eyed beans with fried eggs, sweet plantain pancakes and her signature ZGK breakfast burrito. This follows to a lunch chop bar menu which is a choice of Ghanaian classics in a single platter. A proper main for Sunday roast? Try her lamb palaver which is a five hour slow cooked hoggat shoulder with baby spinach and ground melon seed stew. Don’t forget there are the everyday specials too!Zoe’s culinary journey began in the Hackney supper club scene and has build a reputation to pop-ups across London and going internationally to Berlin and Russia.Zoe Adjonyoh was born and raised in South London to Irish and Ghanaian parents. A cook and food writer, Zoe has an MA in Creative and Life Writing from Goldsmiths College and is a fixture on the foodie calendar in London and Berlin. Zoes Ghana Kitchen, takes its street food stall all over the UK and appeared at Camp Bestival as part of The Feast Collective in 2014.African beers provided by Kato Enterprises (katoenterprises.co.uk) and ultimaltguide.com @ultimaltguideokra tempura with shito hot pepper sauce (v) the okra was young and not too gelatinuous. Deep fried, served with a sauce was a perfect finger food with the African beers!red beans with kelewele chunky plantain chips (ve) jollof chicken skewers wow, this was spicy! It did not need extra spicy sauce on the side because it was flavoursome and moist on its own. hearty beef, spinach and ginger stew oh, yes it was definitely very hearty. A hungry tummy was satisfied.Zoe’s signature peanut butter stew with mutton a very light sauce with crushed peanuts sprinkled on top. The mutton was very tender, not stringy that sticks in between my teeth. The crushed peanuts, I am not sure if they were a different kind, tasted very buttery. Delicious!garden egg (mini white aubergines) stew (v)cassava croquettes (v) personally, I find that this was a little heavy and dry.baked coconut and cassava cake this was very much like the Malaysia cassava kuih. This was a very similar version, a little dry and is not sweet. A very nice savoury dessert.banoffee pie just as we thought we were not going to get the acclaimed banoffee pie with the chin chin biscuit, here it is! Zoe made us veru happy and surprised. It was a sweet indulgence, very nicely balanced off with the Chin Chin saltish biscuit but I personally do not like banoffee pie. It was served up in quite small bowls and for one moment, I felt that it was not going to be enough. As we ploughed through the spread slowly, it was surprisingly filling. Make sure you go with a few more friends so that you can order more from the menu for a taste of everything!Thank you Zoe and Market Fresh Communication for a Ghana tasting experience! If you like her cooking and want to recreate it at home, nb. Zoe is working on her first cookbook. vi-vian.com

  July 17, 2015, 2:42 pm

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• Iris

  Bah Bah’s pop-up at The King & Co. runs until 29 March 2015; if you like Persian food, and struggle to eat it in London because of the hefty prices it often comes with, you mustnt miss it. If moneys not your worry, try it just the same. Itll only mean you can order tons of Bah Bahs brilliant grub, and leave with an even bigger smile on your face.The menu offers a wide range of hot and cold meze, a few mains and desserts, and daily changing specials. The meze are quite small in size; if you want to sample different dishes, get three or four of them, and pair them with sesame seed flat bread or steamed rice. That will amount to nearly a full meal, leaving enough space for dessert. If you want a sharing meal for a large group, get lots of small plates to feed everyone. We ordered nine meze for five people, which yielded smallish individual portions; everything tasted so incredibly good, I couldnt help being hungry for more.Our choice from the cold meze list was Borani e Bademjan: similar in concept to baba ghanoush, its a light spread made with yoghurt and small chunks of smoked aubergine. To the palate, its fresh and smoky at the same time; youd be tempted to eat it straight from the bowl, although it goes just as well with flat bread. Speaking of which, the spinach flat bread in the hot meze menu is also remarkable: large slices of toasted bread comes with soft, warm spinach on top, seasoned with mint and a touch of garlic. Well worth a try.If all this sounds intriguing, know that the best is yet to come. Kufteh are impossible to dislike: whats not to love about juicy lamb and dried fruit meatballs? Sprinkled with pistachios and pomegranate seeds, Kufteh combine many of the signature ingredients in Persian cuisine, bringing out an irresistible array of flavours. I knew Id enjoy them from the moment they landed in front of me; what I wasnt expecting, was to come across a meze dish Id like even more. Enter Pirashki: soft crepes with a beef filling, cooked to a turn and richly seasoned with herbs. To hell with fajitas I dont want to have ground beef any other way now.The meat main, Ghormeh Sabzi (beef shin braised with roasted bone marrow, fresh herbs, kidney beans and Persian dried limes), is just the winter warmer you need to find relief from Londons freezing wintry winds. Its rich, warming sauce reminded me of the beef stews my mother used to cook in large batches when I was a kid. A befitting connection, for Bah Bahs food is a product of cherished memories, too: chef James Nicholsons recollections of the fragrances involved in his Iranian mothers cooking are the main source of inspiration for his pop-up.A slice of carrot and halva cake ended my meal on a sky-high note. Its texture was unlike anything I had before: not quite as crumbly as traditional sponge, somehow similar to the tender yet compact consistency of fudge (without its sickeningly sugary notes, though). The sweet orange peel it comes with and the sour whipped yoghurt on top even each others bold flavours out, creating a perfectly balanced, utterly addictive dessert: youll feel tempted to eat it until you feel a sugar rush kicking in and you may need several helpings to get to that point.No name could be more appropriate for my experience than Bah Bah: a Farsi auditory compliment for all things appealing, and most likely the way Id describe my meal if I was any fluent in the language. Get yourself to the King & Co before 29 March, and youll see what Im on about; even if Persian foods not your thing, the pub is a lovely place to be. You will definitely find your poison among their selection of craft beers, wines and spirits, and even on a Friday night, youll be far enough from Claphams overcrowded main haunts to find a seat and have actual conversations with your mates. Tempted to pay a visit? I thought so. whatevergetsyouthroughtheday.wordpress.com

  June 7, 2015, 12:09 am

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• Melissa Thompson

  I counted down the days until Miss P’s Barbecue began their residency atThe King and Co in Clapham, less than a 10 minute walk away from Clapham Common station.I’d fallen in love with Miss P ever since tasting their BBQ brisket at KERB in Canary Wharf (note: please come back to the Wharf soon, KERB).That summer day I sat with my box of lovingly smoked meat, moist with its perfectly rendered fat, slathered in a zingy hot sauce and sat next to cooling coleslaw and felt the buzz fade away and my stresses dissolve – for that 20 minutes I savoured the food for, anyway.Having only tried them once though, there was the danger I revered them too much. What if they didn’t live up to my recollection, especially now they were catering for hungry diners in a small yet busy pub?Ever the optimist I took three friends on the first day we could make it. As soon as we walked in, I could smell that familiar, warming smell of smoke and I was happy.Miss P’s menu includes brisket and pulled pork, as well as their popular Cajun catfish, smoke-fried chicken wings and specials, including oak-smoked ox-cheek or pumpkin.The Trifecta platter (25) offered a nice selection of brisket, pulled pork, wings plus two sides (we had the BBQ beans and mac and cheese), and we stuck on some ox cheek (10.50), slaw (2) and potato salad (3) as well.The brisket was a delight – if I’m pushed to compare between this one and that first that set off my love affair, I’d say this one slighly lacked the same succulence of the first, but was still a delight – flavoursome, tender and that earthy, smokiness that barbecue fans love, in abundance.The pulled pork was lovely and somehow delicate despite all the flavour that had been thrown at it. And the smoke-fried wings – they were incredible. Smoky, crispy, salty and just delicious.But the highlight was the ox cheeks. Transformed from tough bits of meat to juicy, delicious bites, I was in heaven.The sides were special too, and the sauces. It would’ve been nice to be told what they were, as there was a nice little selection. But that’s only a small complaint.The King & Co’s drink selection was pretty special too. I started off on an OK ruby port before we moved onto cava (25 a bottle). They also do a gluten-free beer, Mongozo Pilsner (4.60).Once we’d demolished our first round of food we weren’t quite ready to leave it. It was too special and we knew we’d probably not get the chance to come back. So that’s what prompted us to get a second helping of brisket (9.50) and more mac and cheese (3).We were pursuaded into a slice of Mud Pie (4) at the end, but we were so stuff, and so sated, we could only half-heartedly attempt to eat it.If there was one thing I’d change, it would be to have ribs on the menu. It’s not about wanting my cake and eating it, but offering a wider selection of textures as with brisket, pulled pork and the ox cheek, they were all similarly presented. On the streetfood scene Miss P’s short rib are a blink-and-you-miss-them gold-dust menu choice (only the first in the loooong queue get to try them) but surely a residency has more opportunity to provide them for customers?Nevertheless, we had a brilliant night. The staff were lovely and hidden away at the back of the cosy pub, we could be as loud and enthusiastic about the food as we wanted. Which was pretty fortunate, considering.

  March 7, 2015, 8:01 pm

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• London Curry Blog

  Recently opened on Clapham Park Road, this pop up is away from the hustle and bustle of the high street and has a very chilled vibe. We went on a Saturday night and the pleasantly warm, late September evening perfectly suited the outdoor seating area, as did the lovely weiss beer that i had (although i paid the price for it).The menu here is from Donostia Social Club and described as ‘basque inspired’. By that they mean Tapas.Fancy descriptors aside, the food is good. I had the pigeon with lentils which was unusual but very nice. My co-eaters had the lamb cutlets, gaspacio and mini beef burgers respectively, whilst we all shared patatas bravas.The lamb was described as lean, succulent and the perfect accompaniement to the pea purree.In general, the atmosphere was very laid back and condusive to pleasant conversation and a perfectly chilled out, light-eating, weekend evening. The range of beers was also commendable and so definitely worth a visit. londoncurryblog.com

  December 28, 2014, 1:18 am

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