Opium for Mass
When King Lud plays chess … Until lately Clapham High Street was lookin’ a tad down at heel, a touch downmarket, a trifle unpalatable. The chattering classes first discovered it in the Nineties. Gnocchi was knocked back and dotcom bubbly guzzled in minimalist restaurants. Consuming consumé against an appreciation of a consummate command of line. That was, until they sniffed out Northcote Road and jumped one mile west and several notches north up the junction | property ladder. Clapham High Street went downhill. The clattering bells of St Mary’s cloud splicing spire, the only constant. Yummy mummies and faddy daddies retreated to the ‘burbs, tossed with lilacs and red may, blind t’ the unflattering stare of charity façades. Meanwhile multimillionaires’ rows, they became chocca. Now the High Street is doin’ a Blur, having a comeback, a stationary tour. Waitrose? Yep. Byron. Yes. Protest free Foxtons? Yeah. The Dairy and its monosyllabically subtitled menu (Bespoke; Snacks; Garden; Sea; Land; Sweet; Cheese)? Yah.
Awake, north wind, and come, south wind! Aspire to a cornucopian diet of multi layered Michelin starred musings. Rediscovered Clapham’s gone all Louboutin heel and Saturday farmers’ organic food market and sherry trifle on a plate. Yup. Even the gents have been gentrified. The WC conveniently next to Clapham Common Station’s been sanitised to become Wine & Charcuterie. North London’s got The Ampersand. South London’s got an ampersand. Thankfully there’s still a bit a’ danger lurking ‘neath the railway arches. We’re off to the hard launch of Fu Manchu for some moustachioed mischief and fiendish plotting with Lavender’s Blue new intern, blonde babelicious Bristolian Annabel P. “Life’s a beach. No make that a stage.” Quadruple doctorates aren’t a prerequisite. A lust for life is. We give good party. Fu Manchu attracts shady characters. Yep that’s us, we’re on our way. Time to play bridge and tunnel with our arch enemies in a deadly game of Cluedo. You don’t have to be in Who’s Who to know what’s what. But it helps.
Calum Ducat’s Fu Manchu’s Events Manager: “It’s not a generic venue. When you enter Fu Manchu it’s like your own little world. Clapham’s secret. Las Vegas’ Tao Asian bistro and night club. In SW4.” A rim of light installations by Louisa Smurthwaite, beloved by Alison Goldfrapp and Grace Jones, periodically illuminates the exposed brickwork. In between it’s dark like the tents of Kedar. The tall, lean and feline waiter seductively suggests lovely steamed Tai Chi Bo Coy Gow (£5.80) and baked Wai Fa Chi Mar Har (£4.50) dim sum. What a devious mastermind. “That’s going to happen.” Duty bound we help ourselves to a portion or four. Pure evil. Immortally hypnotic cocktails infused with Chinese essence and Asian flavours as fragrant as Jeffrey Archer’s wife. The Kiss of Death’s (£9.50) liquid rejuvenation, elixir vitae. Pure genius. Mancho’s Mind Control’s (£10.00) peril incarnate. Pure fear. Spikenard and saffron; calamus and cinnamon, with all trees of frankincense; myrrh and aloes, with all the chief spices. DJ Andrew Galea takes to the decks. Time to play the Sax Rohmer. Yo. Let’s indulge in some insidious dancing; monopolise the floor, a game of risk, human Jenga, conscious coupling, connect two, crimes of passion and, eh, rumbustious rumblings (trains overhead anyone?), by the watchmen of the walls, under the unhaggard midnight sun. Pure lust.
From a Victorian opium den to an Edwardian five star. Money can’t buy happiness but it can buy dinner at the Rosewood Hotel. If it’s not on your radar you need to quickly recalibrate. The hotel’s Holborn Dining Room is where it’s all going on, a macédoine of next seasonness, fashion fastforwardness. A recipe for excess. Forget trays or envelopes or woe betide by hand; bills in books are just so now. Rosewood might be a chain, but more Tiffany than Travelodge. If you could perfume glamour, it’d come up smelling of Rosewood. Money can’t buy dinner with the Right Honourable David Lammy in the Regency Carlton House Terrace (truffle arrancini, kale Caesar salad, asparagus wrapped in grilled courgettes and summer pudding washed down with Laurent Perrier Champers, Châteauneuf du Pape 2005, Mâcon-Lugny Louis Latour 2011 and Château Raymond Lafon Sauternes 2010). Pure gold. 
If you have ever wanted to replicate at home the tablescape from a restaurant, Craig Rogan at The Collective is the place for you. A restaurant in a shop or possibly a shop in a restaurant. Shelves separating dining tables from the retail area are filled with tempting purchases such as a green marble Amelie pestle and mortar (£125) or an alabaster Amelie rolling pin (£45). It’s an intimate environment with just 36 covers and an open plan kitchen set back from the street front. A giclee print of Grace Jones by Victoria Topping (£1,200) dominates the bathroom.
This ground floor space in a restored Victorian block on Boar Lane close to Leeds Railway Station is now buzzing morning, noon and night. When we arrive for lunch a business networking event is wrapping up. Our waitress explains a brunch menu is the latest addition to the restaurant. Formality increases as the day progresses, culminating with an eight course tasting menu in the evening. Less than six months after opening, the Michelin Guide gave Craig Rogan at The Collective a glowing recommendation.
Craig cut his teeth at high profile restaurants including Fera in Claridge’s Hotel London. His father Simon Rogan is a three star Michelin chef. Craig relates, “We use a lot of local suppliers. All our seafood is from Hodgson Fish in Hartlepool on the east coast and our meat supplier is from Sykes House Farm in Wetherby. We also go to Leeds Kirkgate Market which was once the largest indoor market in Europe. It’s still very big now and has some amazing fishmongers and meat suppliers.”
Our lunch is wine, small plates, pudding, wine. Vino Pamona Pinot Grigio, 2023 (£26.50). Salt baked beetroot, walnut, raspberry vinegar, Kidderton Ash goat’s cheese (£11.00). Isle of Wight tomatoes, anchovy, basil (£11.00). Oak smoked salmon, yuzu, dill, apple, cucumber (£15.00). Dark chocolate, vanilla and acid orange tart (£8.00). Craig’s talent shines through on every plate in the fresh, flavoursome and photogenic food.
