Editorial rating 4/5 (even though Charlotte wanted to give a 5!)
Adress: 2-8 Bloomberg Arcade, London EC4N 8AR
Opening hours: Mon-Fri 7-22.30 Sat 10-22.30 Sun 10-16:00
Price: starters from £4.50, mains from £12.50
Website: ektelondon.co.uk
Reviewers: Shaniaz Hama Ali & Charlotte Ågren
About:
Danish-born restauranteur Soren Jessen, launched Ekte Nordic Kitchen in the Bloomberg Arcade in the City of London.
Ekte, in Swedish “Äkta”, meaning genuine or real in Norwegian, offer a varied Nordic menu, overseen by Swedish-born Head Chef Robin Freeman. The Scandinavian-influenced Restaurant and Café/Deli is open daily throughout the day for both eat-in or to go, with changing menus from breakfast through lunch and dinner.
Our review:
Interior
We visited Ekte on a Monday during lunch time. The interior was very Scandi – clean and stylish with a hint of industrial design. We were sat next to the open fireplace with a deer head on the wall above. Shaniaz even thought this was a moose, just like our logo. It almost felt we were in a lodge in Lappland.
Smørrebrød, salads and starters
We tried to pick a few items from the menu without coming across as greedy since everything on the menu looked delicious. We settled for two smørrebrød; the cured duck with potato, plum chutney and crisped onion and the avocado one with toasted pumpkin seeds, lemon, chilli and coriander. For starters we picked veal with sweetbreads, cauliflower puree, juniper oil and toasted almonds and our friendly waiters recommendation; the devon crab with butter fried bread, chilli, herbs, confit egg yolk and citrus salt. We also wanted to try their salads; the butternut squash kale salad with lingonberries and roasted hazelnut, and the potato salad with wholegrain mustard, shallots, capers and lemon zest vinaigrette.
None of us were big fans of crab before but the waiter was on top of his game because this was by far the favourite of all the dishes that came in. The egg yolk was a perfect fit together with the creamy crab scramble and was both filling, fresh and delicious. The smørrebrød was filling and always a nice treat for us Scandis as dark rye bread is still not very common around London. The veal was incredibly juicy and just melted in the mouth. The butternut squash salad was a good addition to the rest of our buffet of starters.
Mains
We kept it simple and chose two favourites: Swedish meatballs (that they in Denmark call “Frikadeller”) with mashed potato, creamy gravy, lingonberries and quick-pickled cucumber. The second dish was Beef Rydberg, cubed aged sirloin, potatoes, and onions with mustard sauce, egg yolk, watercress. Beef Rydberg is a classic Swedish dish known to be good when you’re having a hangover. Even though we didn’t have a hangover this day we can say that the best Beef Rydberg is officially served at Ekte. The meat was perfectly tender, the potatoes and onions heavenly and the combination with the mustard sauce and and yolk was beyond this world.
The meatballs, sorry we mean the “Frikadeller”, was also delicious. Charlotte, who had them, loves lingonberry so a refill was asked for, twice! We’re not sure if there is any difference in Swedish Meatballs and Danish Frikadeller but as the chef is Swedish be would say they are more Swedish than anything 🙂
Dessert
Ekte were not done, after a good performance with the starters, some incredible mains, they were going to finish on top. So after a performance like that with the classical mains we felt like perhaps that was the way to go, so we choose another Scandi-classic, the Kladdkaka (sticky chocolate cake) with whipped cream and pistachio praline. All we can say is -OMG. The cake was exactly like a Kladdkaka should be, slight crisp on the outside and soft on the inside. The cream was light and fluffy and the pistachio was a perfect match. We will be back very soon!
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