José Pizarro’s Newest Launch in Bermondsey Street
Is José Pizarro the king of Bermondsey Street? His eponymous tapas bar is buzzing and the restaurant further down the road is too. But not satisfied with two sites, the Spanish chef has opened a third, Lolo, (the name is a tongue-in-cheek reference to his middle name, Manuel) right next door to the tapas bar. The idea is for all-day dining that reflects Pizarro’s personal favourite dishes –and part of this involves eating eggs at all times of day. Inside, it’s all terracotta hues and bare plaster walls creating a warm and stylish feel, with friendly and informal staff who are full of enthusiasm for the place and the menu.
We try a selection of dishes; there’s a breakfast menu that focuses strongly on eggs, and the all-day menu retains many of them, so to start we have classic devilled eggs with salt-cured anchovy, which are excellent, followed by baked eggs with girolles and chorizo, which is a simple yet genius combination of flavours, the girolles dramatically yellow, their flavour at the fore. Lolo de ternera is a beef sandwich made of lovely rare beef with slightly sharp green peppers, and courgette carpaccio – a signature dish – is a simple and prettily displayed plate of thinly sliced raw courgette with olive oil, pine nuts and tomatoes that adds up to much more than the sum of its parts.
Home-made fresh curd cheese with tomatoes and preserved lemon is another winner: a cheese of burrata-like creaminess with sweet tomatoes and just a hint of lemon. And then there’s a chicken liver parfait with sweet potato buns and red onion salad, which is a lovely mix of sweet flavours, fluffy textures and pickled salad. This one’s a best-seller, and it’s not hard to understand why.
We’re drinking a Spanish white wine that blends Sauvignon with Gewurztraminer for an unusual, floral flavour – it’s called Gessami, which means jasmine, we’re told (Pizarro sells it in his online shop, so we’ll be placing an order). For pudding, it’s grandmother’s recipe for custard and biscuit, which is sweet, dreamy and comforting. Next time we’ll be trying the selection of tinned fish options, served simply with crisps. José Pizarro is clearly winning in Bermondsey Street.
