Fay Maschler reviews Naughty Piglets

Fay Maschler finds a buzzing bistro in progressive and gentrifying Brixton
French connection: Margaux Aubry is ‘a smiling, willing, genial presence’ at her restaurant Naughty Piglets (Picture: Adrian Lourie)
Adrian Lourie
Fay Maschler5 December 2017

Girl meets boy. Boy meets girl. It is still a good plot, especially with an ending — or in some ways a beginning — like Naughty Piglets.

Born in Lyon, Margaux Aubry — a strong case of nominative determinism — having gained an MBA in France, comes to London to learn about wine. To do so she goes to work at Adam Byatt’s excellent restaurant, Trinity, in Clapham. The head chef there is Joe Sharratt. Well, you know, heat of the kitchen and all that; they marry. Margaux goes to work at Terroirs, the bistro owned by Eric Narioo of Les Caves de Pyrène, where natural wines are cherished.

A young couple with complementary skills such as these should have an establishment of their own, so it is right and proper that in the next chapter of the story Joe’s parents lend them some money to invest in a business.

Brixton may be gentrifying at an unconscionable rate — the website brixtonbuzz.com laments another Caribbean restaurant closing down to be replaced with an enterprise “that instagrams” (fancy!) — but the premises of what was Tony’s Restaurant & Bar in Brixton Water Lane are probably not too exigent in rent and rates. The interior gets completely overhauled and Naughty Piglets — some shared joke about gastronomic greed — opened on March 24.

In the evenings the 30 covers in the restaurant section are already much in demand. We settle for a 9.30pm reservation on a Tuesday and start by sitting at one of the high tables in the bar area. Margaux’s idea that we might share something from the blackboard list while we wait results in dallying with pieces of squid in ethereal batter with a trenchant aioli to accompany glasses of Puy Long 2013 from Domaine Jean Maupertuis, a hand-harvested manually sorted chardonnay that gives this often discredited grape variety the lineaments of a princess — an interesting princess at that, probably one who reads.

Settled in the back dining room panelled with narrow horizontal wooden slats and illuminated with dangling filament light bulbs (it perhaps goes without saying), our first courses are burrata with wild hops and grilled asparagus with egg yolk, Parmesan and buckwheat. The burrata is as milky as a baby's burp but sour wild hops are best left to the brewers. The asparagus I’ll come back to later.

Precise: pork belly with sriracha and raw green wedges

Main courses of pork belly with sriracha and raw green wedges and lamb leg with Jersey potatoes, spinach and salsa verde are sold at the gentle prices of £9 and £14. Sharratt is a fan of kitchen technology and I suspect the tense egg yolk and jiving pork have both benefited from the precise timing and texture that is in the gift of sous-vide preparation. Rare lamb and its grassy accompaniments make a point about spring, as do Jersey potatoes and, in the dessert course, aromatic Gariguette strawberries.

Back for lunch another day I sit up at the bar with a friend who is in the business. For a while we are the only customers. We watch deliveries arrive, including produce from Natoora. Sharratt’s apologetic warning that the asparagus advertised is actually green and from Peru means when we observe a box of sturdy white stems — practically saluting as if on parade — being signed for we quickly add them to our order.

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This includes mussels that are bonny, bouncy airbags elbowing open their shells having been steamed seconds before being served in a cream sauce haunted by wild garlic and grilled prawns in garlic butter strewn with what seems like finely sliced sorrel.

To drape an XXL diver scallop in lardo, drench it in browned butter and add buckwheat for nubble and nuttiness is an unassailable move except that had the buckwheat been just mildly softened by simmering it would have avoided a slight sensation of a holiday sandwich dropped in the shingle.

Almost unassailable: XXL diver scallop, lardo, brown butter and buckwheat

Two pieces of monkfish with gilded tips on the rough outer surface of the dense flesh come with accompaniment of a creamy emulsion of white miso, tomatoes and cubed cucumber, stealthy flavours that vie for covert dominance. Then that white asparagus given a final toasting on the grill is served with fluffy micro-planed Parmesan, an egg yolk barely able to contain its molten richness, melted butter and crisped roughly torn crumbs — almost a moral tale.

My chum is admiring Margaux, professionally of course. He later writes “she really has got that thing, that star quality and holistic vision of all of her things in her restaurant being as they should be … this comes from belief, drive, pride and a sense of purpose in her allotted space and time”.

Translated onto the floor this means a smiling, willing, genial presence, sensitive to needs, quick, deft and up for opening almost any wine to try. This way we discover the merits of Muscadet La Bohème Domaine de la Sénéchalière 2013 and also L’Orginel, Simon Busser Cahors 2013. Magnums are for another day. A couple who arrive introduce themselves as living in the house opposite. She already knows their neighbours.

It could be argued that the proposed Reclaim Brixton rally is based on short memories. Since the late 19th century it has been an area defined by progressive change. In 1877, Bon Marche in Brixton Road, the first purpose-built department store in the land, opened. Why not Naughty Piglets now?

Lunch Wed-Sun, noon-2.30pm (4pm Sun). Dinner, Tues-Sat 6pm-10pm. A meal for two with wine, about £96 inc. 12.5 per cent service.

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