Ooze
I like risotto, a fact that should be completely bloody obvious to anyone who reads this blog on a regular basis. I'm fussy about risotto, and it annoys me when I'm served bad risotto in a restaurant, because it is a bloody simple dish to prepare; all that's needed is care and attention. I guess to some extent choosing risotto in a restaurant is a good way of judging their food. If the risotto is poor, then it is a good indication that they don't care about what they serve up, and so aren't worth the bother in future.I once joked about opening a risotto restaurant in Sheffield. I even mentally devised a three course risotto menu - e.g. risotto cakes for a starter, risotto for the main course, and then a chocolate desert risotto for pudding. It would be genius.
The same month I came up with the idea, I read about a new risotto bar in London called Ooze. Thus the decision about where to eat on my short break to London last week was made for me.
Ooze is on Goodge Street, just off Tottenham Court Road. The interior is rather unassuming, with no soft furninshings in sight. For the main course there are basically 12 different types of risotto to choose from; four fish, four veg, and four meat (there's also salad if you don't fancy risotto). According to the website, all the dishes come from the same basic risotto, and the modifying ingredients added towards the end of cooking. Not the best way to prepare risotto, but perfectly understandable. Risotto does take time, and there's a lot of competition in London, so they need to keep costs down. As it turns out, this method seems to work out OK. Though my own choice of Porcini and Cherry Tomato could have been improved by adding the mushrooms at the start (and perhaps a bit more salt) for most dishes this wouldn't matter and that was certainly the case with Liv's Butternut Squash and Hazelnut risotto which was delicious. I'd never have thought of putting hazelnut in risotto, but it really works.
They also say that the dishes can be adjusted to taste; you can have more or less butter and more or less Parmesan (more of both please!). They got the richness pretty much right. I make my risotto really rich, but the truth is most people would struggle to finish it and would prefer something lighter, which is just how Ooze make theirs.
Food aside, the service was really excellent. Friendly without being casual, attentive without being overbearing, and best of all they seemed to be genuinely happy to be serving you a dish they cared about. I was chatting to who I assume was the restaurant manager just before leaving and she had taken an interest in what had brought us there. "Trust me" she said, "if you like risotto, don't open a risotto restaurant. You'll be sick of the stuff." That's that idea out of the window then!
