Zoë Williams - Stella Magazine 

Chef Tim Johnson was a protege" of Nico Ladenis, working in all those London Nico joints (Chez Nico, Simply Nico, Incognico), and just over a year ago flew the nest to a village in Kent that could not be more English if you swagged the whole place in a giant doily. He runs Apicius with his wife, Faith, who told me off for laughing when she said 'faggot'. She has a certain presence that I can't quite put my finger on, but I would come here even without the restaurant, just to hang out in her front room - which is what this diddy place looks like. The front room of a highly likeable person, with a hell of a lot of tablecloths.

My companion started with veal sweetbreads, deep-fried, with celeriac puree and lamb's lettuce; I had the jellied native lobster with a green bean salad, guacamole and gazpacho. It's an interesting business, that thymus gland, with the mousse-like texture of liver, but a much more reserved and unobtrusive flavour, more in the region of a chop. It's like offal-for-beginners. Anyway, this was delicious - deep-frying is a classic thing to do with a sweetbread, and the right thing, in my view (you can keep your relatively healthy sauté! The celeriac streaked in with an elegant sense of belonging, like next door's pedigree cat. The lobster impressed me - lovely meat, good jelly - and the olive oil in the guacamole was spectacular, it absolutely made the dish. The gazpacho arrived in a shot glass, so salty that only the colour gave away its ingredients. But I do believe Confucius has a rule about this (When Everything on the Plate is Tasty, Wise Man Not Complain About the Funny Business in the Shot Glass).

Now, let's get on to my beloved's main course, a roast loin of Kentish lamb with sweet potato puree, spinach and white onion sauce and the faggot that got us into trouble - a mixture of kidney, liver and those darn delicious sweetbreads again. Breaded and deep-fried, this had a wonderful, rich, offally, profoundly savoury flavour. It's a good test of a kitchen, now I think about it, since one false move with a faggot - in the recipe, in the frying temperature, in the crumb size, even if you just look at it funny - and it turns into a horrid claggy mess. I might start ordering one wherever I go.

The boyfriend was so lost in faggot heaven I think I could have done a lamb-grab off the rest of his plate and he wouldn't have noticed. I had the steamed fillet of turbot with leeks and saffron potatoes and herb vinaigrette and, let me tell you, it's the last time I order like such a girl. The turbot was a fine enough piece of fish, but the saffron oil didn't really lift it, just made everything a bit more orange. The leeks were perfect - simple, steamed, buttery, but a bit worthy.

Now, this place is already quite famous for its puds, and rightly so - they are put together with incredible love and delicacy, all millimetre-thick pastry and the kind of creme anglaise that domestic cooks simply can't do. It is astonishing that they could pull this off without a dessert-dedicated chef.

Himself had the strawberry theme, wherein an oblong plate was lined with three alarmingly glamorous sculptures, one strawberry and pannacotta, one ice cream, one simple strawberries (doubtless Kentish). I had the cherry theme where, again, the elements were lined up like sentries -a pastry basket of cherries and custard at one end, ice cream in die middle, a shot of kirsch at the other end. I never did figure out whether that meant actual kirsch or metaphorical restaurant kirsch that you can drink and still drive afterwards. 

Delicious and the value is nothing short of remarkable £23 for three courses. So good, in fact, that it's just about
all the advice you need to check this place out. Oh, apart from 'don't laugh at the faggot'. It really makes Faith furious.

 

Stella rating 8/10