A ‘Seedling’ is Planted in Covent Garden

    by Leslie Hunt


One would be forgiven for thinking no site in Covent Garden could possibly offer culinary adventure.  After all, this is the domain of chain stores and street performers, tour buses and red photo booths, handily planted for instant Instagram moments.  However, something else has been planted in Aldwych this autumn, the long-awaited ‘Seedling’ from celeb chef-about-town, Melody Williams.

The delayed launch had been the object of much speculation, as was the venue.  Who on Earth would want to craft an entirely new dining space out of a disused office for the Department for Work & Pensions?  And who was backing this enormous and pricey venture for a chef who, if we are being entirely practical, may have her best days behind her?

For readers unfamiliar with Ms. William’s backstory, she is the (once)celebrated chef of Grange House, that charming outer-London barn-cum-bistro that rose from homey, hokey obscurity to celeb-sighting gusto in the space of a few years.  It seemed an unlikely transformation.  An experimental nod to permaculture supplying its nightly menu from its own garden, it could be argued that what made Grange House such a sudden juggernaut was more down to the timing than what was on the plate.  Londoners’ growing interest in all things ‘sustainable’ was just taking flight as Grange House opened its doors(and homegrown produce) to an ever more virtuous spending class.  This is not to say it didn’t have its merits, and Melody Williams’s menu eschewed the tubular exploits and pink-hued froths that began with the Catalan brothers of El Bulli and spread like a newly-discovered coronavirus, across the developed world.  No, Williams’s menu was one of simplicity and purity, the individual flavours of such items as heritage tomatoes and burrata uncompromised in their identity and sparkling in their presentation.  Grange House was refreshing(even more so when the patchy roof occasionally leaked onto the unsuspecting diner, below).

When it comes to this second act, don’t let the name ‘Seedling’, in and of itself, lead you astray.  As prim and earthy as it may sound, Seedling is by no means a Grange House part deux.  In fact, it is quite the opposite, with a luxe interior that could easily be the lobby and reception of a grandiose French Château, a Russian oligarch’s summer home - or both.  Plank Scandinavian hardwood stretches from the entryway, past the travertine marble bar and into a large conservatory space, or as ‘Seedling’ terms it, The Garden(though minus four adroitly potted and placed olive trees, it’s more spa-motif than Cotswalds chic).  An unnecessary and incongruent chandelier signposts guests into the spectacularly appointed dining room, three enormous Georgian windows drawing the eye from the hardwood to the ebullient globe light fixtures running down the restaurant in dreamlike brilliance.  The walls, a feminine blue pastel, are sprayed with delicate crushed oyster shells at random intervals that glow with the fast-fading Autumn light.  The massive marble bar(yet, another) that runs along the rear of the space is both daunting and awe-inspiring - and the weight of which likely explains the choice of wide-planked cedar to support it all.

And then there are the front-of-house uniforms.

Yes, there has been a veritable mountain of press and commentary on the Seedling dress code, from my contemporaries’ restaurant reviews to style magazines and fashion blogs.  Even so, they bear mentioning, once more. The receptionists stand out in their unwieldy conical(and comical) dresses that are less catwalk than Casper the Friendly Ghost .  In the dining room, the bright white styling continues.  Crisp bolero jackets that are half-porter/half-sanitorium compliment stripey undershirts, with a few inexplicably in denim-blue waistcoats.  I’m assuming there is some hierarchical scheme to the carnaval-esque cabal, as well as an intention to truly make a statement - which is admirable considering most London restaurants default to the safe and standard black-on-black.  What this ensemble represents will be very much dependent on the eye-of-the-beholder.  For me, it was 1990s Jean-Paul Gaultier via a very gay cruise.

But, we’re not here for the decor and costuming, are we?  No, we are here to eat, and as dazzling as the spectacle of Seedling might be, Ms. Williams, a Michelin-starred chef, is a woman of serious chops.  After all, new central London restaurants don’t open without the talent that can carry them.  

That talent was on full display with my starter, a delicate North Sea mackerel grilled skin down and set to rest.  The fish’s slightly wild and savage quality popped when paired with a red currant coulis and bayleaf reduction.  My partner’s ricotta dumplings with spinach and marjoram, though simple, was a seasonal pleasure.  The same must be said of his non-alcoholic ‘Rhubarb Rickey’, a housemade offering elevating the oft-neglected category of teetotal tonics.

Main courses were similarly well-executed; grilled lamb with cumin-pumpkin puree and the unusual addition of black garlic, for myself, and the vegetarian option(the only one, sadly) of acorn squash with cime de rapa for my partner.  For my lamb, I most definitely needed a pairing wine. Our server, an Irish lad desperately emasculated by his uniform, suggested a robust and reasonably-priced Gigondas from Pierre Morel.  The pairing was stellar.  In fact, the entire wine list, a concise and considered exercise, is among the more impressive I’ve seen in London, this year.  Conceived by Head Sommelier Mike Fenwick, classics such as Haut-Brion are complimented by slightly more esoteric ‘in-the-know’ bottlings such as Domaine Tempier’s Migoua cuveé or Samantha O’Keefe’s Lismore Chardonnay.  And with the latter wines aggressively-priced(£82 and £47 respectively), a night out in Covent needn’t involve a compromise of budget over quality.

With such a fun list it was little surprise to see Mike himself smiling away as he ferried bottles across the floor, popping Champagne with aplomb and genuinely looking like he was having the time of his life.  I wish I could say the same for the rest of the staff, however.  Largely efficient and professional though they were, most either looked blank-faced or slightly dour, a stark contrast to the fun house colouring of Seedling, itself.  

We finished sharing a delectable walnut and rye tart topped with tangy sheep’s-milk zabaglione and two coffees.  The final bill, even with shared dessert, was just over one-hundred pounds per head - a financial burden most can’t support more than once a month, at best.

Seedling debuts as one of the hottest and most-talked about London restaurants of the season.   By and large, it lives up to expectations.  Foodies and Michelin-hounds will not find a more impressive dining room; the sheer grandeur of the space elicits gasps on first viewing.  The farm-to-table ingredients and simple, joyful cooking continue the ethos of Grange House’s quality over style tradition that made Melody Williams a cause-celeb, in the first place.  That said, with starters running in the teens and nearly all the mains at thirty plus sterling, there will be much demanded of the nascent Seedling.  I, personally, would have expected a vegetarian option of more excitement than acorn squash, an old standby as common in a gastropub as a Fulham house party.  Fans of the chef from Grange House might similarly be disappointed by her new incarnation, here.  Beautiful though Seedling may be, there is a disconnect in the delicate, temple-like ascetic beauty of the space and the down-to-Earth homey-ness of her former digs.  This disconnect between nature and the new environs presents a somewhat jarring incongruency with the principled ideology of Ms. Williams’s menu.  The plot is slightly lost.




Seedling

Recommended
4 of 5 stars
££££
starters begin at £12
entrees begin at £28