When it comes to turning unloved venues into crowd-pleasers, Ed and Tom Martin seem to have the Midas touch. Since 2001, their ETM Group has been steadily expanding with some venues (like The Botanist) enjoying overnight success and others (like The Well) quietly plodding along. The former was as busy as ever when we passed it last Friday and seems to have casually beaten the neighbouring brasseries into submission.
While The Botanist is a stylish stable for Chelsea’s Sloaney ponies, The Cadogan Arms is definitely a pub at heart. Tucked away at the quieter end of the King’s Road, it’s a refined but comfortable space with plenty of dark wood, an old brick fireplace and a taxidermy collection that gives it the homely air of a hunting lodge. Upstairs, the billiards room has been lovingly restored and furnished with three eight-ball tables to keep the local dandies busy in the evenings.
The menu is reassuringly short - (never trust a pub serving more than ten main courses ) - and classics like fishcakes and the pint o’prawns are all present and correct. My companion fared well with the soup, which had retained that delicious roasted tomato flavour and benefited from a decadent swirl of crème fraiche and basil oil. A real simple pleasure. I drew the shorter straw with a mushroom tart which was tasty enough, with its fine shavings of pecorino and light truffle dressing, but suffered from being over-salted and not quite hot enough.
The menu offers a host of manly mains – burger, steak, veal chop, etc – but as it was Friday, we both chose fish. The haddock was a fine specimen but its batter lacked the crispness I was craving - perhaps the Adnam’s Broadside they use is better in the glass than in the kitchen? Still, the Jenga-style stack of chips were spot on and the minted pea puree should be served as a dish in its own right. Full marks for the generous pot of tartare sauce too.
Across the table, a fillet of pan-fried pink trout was beautifully cooked and a far cry from ‘pub grub’. We couldn’t taste the saffron oil mentioned on the menu but the accompanying risotto was delicious, packed full of fresh garden peas and broad beans. To drink, we chose the house rosé which is ‘exclusively blended’ each year in the Languedoc region under the watchful eye of Ed and Tom. The manager – a young man so well turned out we felt we should be serving him – promised it was ‘drinking very well this year’, and he was quite right. Crisp, fresh and fruity – an ideal lunchtime tipple.
Gastropub desserts are usually uninspired and microwaved, but here the menu promises home-made crumbles, Eton Mess and hand-picked British cheeses. The Valrhona chocolate mousse was dark and smooth, with a cardamom-spiked cream to cut through the richness, but it arrived in a wine glass. This might look pretty but I’m always terrified of breaking it with my invading spoon. The lavender crème brulee was technically perfect, with a crisp burnt-sugar layer shattering to reveal the fragrant creamyness beneath. The floral flavour - ‘a bit like bed linen in Provence’ - is not for everyone but the honey and pistachio shortbread was lovely.
After lunch, we could have happily rolled into the corner and settled in for the afternoon with a newspaper and another bottle of rosé. That’s got to be a good sign. Our three courses, while not flawless, were very promising and a special mention must go to the lovely French waitress who coped admirably as the pub filled up. The Cadogan Arms might not be somewhere you’d cross town for, but if you’re in the area and don’t pop in, you’re definitely missing out.
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