Blooming Brilliant: meeting April Bloomfield

And, like a hungry child to a mother’s teet, I managed to sniff out what I’m pretty sure is one of the hottest restaurants in New York – The John Dory. I’d heard a lot about its chef April Bloomfield before the trip, perhaps because she’s British, and is one in that rare breed of female and Michelin starred chefs.

The open kitchen at the John Dory

Bloomfield won a star for her first opening The Spotted Pig, perhaps New York’s first successful gastropub, where she endeared New Yorkers with her relaxed environment and well executed, British-inspired fare. Since opening her second restaurant The John Dory in Manhattan’s Meatpacking district, she’s been lavished with praise – including a five star review from our very own AA Gill, who described the food at the fish restaurant as “cod-fisted, fishy-fingered food, made with panache and a big mouth”. So of course, I was dying to meet the woman herself, and that’s exactly what I did.

“It’s exciting opening a new restaurant,” she says from her perch at the dining bar at the John Dory (the counters are perspex filled with glinting fake fish). “You get to do things differently, improve on your first one and it’s nice because I had so many people who were coming up though the ranks at the Spotted Pig. It was great to be able to transfer them into another project and see them grow and blossom into bigger and better things.” There’s a definite American twang to her voice – she harks from Birmingham but you wouldn’t know it – it’s the neutral voice of someone who left their hometown long ago.

April Bloomfield at the John Dory, holding a John Dory

So I’m intrigued to know how she came to find herself opening a restaurant in this wonderful city. She tells me about working at the River Café in London with Rose Gray and Ruth Rogers for quite a long time, and feeling ready for “a different experience”. “I knew that I couldn’t go any further at the River Café – I was already their sous chef, I was already writing menus and doing all the ordering and I felt like I couldn’t go any further up the ladder.” So when she heard via a friend that Jamie Oliver was recruiting a chef to open a restaurant on behalf of New York band manager-turned-restaurateur Ken Friedman (who, it tells us here, used to manage the Smiths), she put her name forward.

“He [Friedman] phoned me and asked if I wanted to come to New York, and I was very blasé about the whole thing,” she laughs. “ I was like, “well, you know, yeah” – and two weeks later I was on a plane to New York for a whirlwind weekend of cooking, drinking and meeting Mario Batali. I got the thumbs up from Mario and they offered me the job and I took it, and I’m glad I took it.” And so am I. Without seeming to trivialise things, the starter ‘oyster pan roast’ which I eat that evening during my meal at the restaurant turns out to be the best thing I ate in New York, and possibly one of the best things I’ve ever eaten in my life. And you know how I feel about oysters.

The DELICIOUS oyster pan roast

It doesn’t come cheap mind. An oyster pan roast starter will set you back $19 – but believe me it’s worth every cent. Excuse me while I rhapsodise: The miraculous concoction (pictured above) comes in a little bowl, the thin, pale broth looking unassuming with a dash of olive oil and pinch of cayenne pepper floating on top. But the first slurp packs a punch so rich in flavour, so headily delicious that you’ll be gulping the dregs straight from the bowl before you know it.

The broth’s flavour comes from cream, shallots, white wine and lemon and is incredibly intense – the soft, lilac grey oysters minerally and bursting with freshness. It comes with a little crostini spread with sea urchin butter – an ingenious salty substance that brings the straight-from-the-sea element that’s lost with the cooked oysters back into the dish. It’s incredible. I’m going to have to leave it there, even though I have much more to say (and more quotes from Bloomfield) – otherwise this will be a tome rather than blogpost. Bloomfield was delightful – she’s opening another restaurant in NYC called the Breslin shortly – I just wish she’d open one in old Blighty.