the fox & anchor

115 Charterhouse Street, London, EC1M 6AA
Tel: (020) 7250 1300
Open 7am-11pm Mon-Fri, noon-11pm Sat
Food served 7am-11am, noon-10pm Mon-Fri

Next door to the recently-opened, rather glamorous Tart restaurant and a couple of doors down from the Wicked Wolf, the newly renovated Fox & Anchor faces considerable competition from eateries and drinking dens in the vicinity of Smithfield meat market. This traditional pub, which dates back to 1898, has been done up by the trendy Malmaison group, whose chief executive Robert Cook advocates ‘the Mal life’, advising us to “Be passionate. Grab life by the hand, whisk it briskly down a sandy beach for a spot of midnight skinnydipping. Be more rock’n’roll. Eat, drink and sleep the things that make you happy.”

I didn’t see many rock’n’roll starlets going skinny-dipping in the pickled eggs, but the bar in the Fox & Anchor nevertheless lives up to the philosophy of indulgence, while maintaining its old world integrity…

banana curry/chutney

Not being a big fan of pineapple, I decided to try my own fruit version of the Sri Lankan pineapple curry. Good served as side dish to a main curry.

Ingredients:
2 bananas – chopped into rounds 1.5 cm thick
1/2 a red onion – finely chopped
2 cloves of garlic – finely chopped
1 stick of cinnamon – broken in half
10 curry leaves – twisted to release the flavour
1/4 tspn saffron powder (tumeric is an easier, cheaper alternative)
1/4 tspn finely ground black pepper
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 tspn curry powder (the fresher the better)
1 tspn chilli powder
3 tbsp olive oil
1/2 can coconut milk and the same again of water