(30 Jan 2009)
Maria Raferty’s cooking is keeping
Zuni right on the boil, continuing one of the biggest restaurant
success stories of recent times. It’s possible to find
yourself in this dining room on a Tuesday in the depths of
winter, and you will find only another 50 or 60 people there.
The food is typically modern – lamb shank is Moroccan
in style; beer battered prawns have a guacamole salsa; Caesar
Salad has chicken - but there is a serene note of comfort
in all of Ms Raferty’s work: the coconut and seafood
laksa is refreshing rather than zesty: the lamb shank delicate
rather than effusive.
Put that composed cooking style together
with a truly lovely room – and a lovely bar, one of
the nicest modern bars around – add in friendly and
courteous service and attentive bosses, and you have a rockin’
formula that taps into the zeitgeist. The wine list remains
a weak spot, lacking the logic of the menu, but otherwise
Zuni is deft and delicious, and seems unable to put a foot
wrong.