Exciting – Scully St James’s

CHEF Ramael Scully is a rare find – with a style of cooking that’s defiantly unique. At his restaurant in St James’s, near Piccadilly Circus, he prepares highly creative and complex dishes inspired by far-flung cuisines.

It’s futile trying to pin down or label what’s on offer. Far better to just sit back, relax and enjoy the culinary ride.

Take a starter using Italian courgettes, for example. These are salted, cooked on a barbecue then served with a green curry sauce, yoghurt spiked with turmeric and “urap sayur”, a type of spiced shredded coconut dressing from Java.

In another, an oozy burrata cheese is served with peaches and a black bean and shiitake mushroom vinaigrette.

If these unfamiliar combinations sound bewildering, do not fear. They always work well and the food is entirely delicious.

Ramael Scully was born in Malaysia. His mother was of Chinese / Indian descent; his father Irish / Balinese.

The family moved to Sydney when Scully was eight and he later came to London, where he worked with chef Yotam Ottolenghi and opened Nopi restaurant in Soho on his behalf.

Scully St James’s is his own venture. You walk in past shelves stacked with large glass jars of various concoctions such as rose petal vinegar, brined kumquats and fermented jackfruit skins.

The basement dining room is unremarkable. But all eyes are drawn to the open-plan kitchen in the centre and the team of chefs, with Scully firmly taking centre stage.

I ate at the marble counter, chatting with chefs as they worked. One taught me how she fries their maitake and shimeji mushrooms, soaking them in mushroom stock before dusting with an equal mix of seasoned rice and corn flour.

A bestseller here is a snack of puffy fried beef tendons – a bit like pork crackling – which you dip in a rich tomato sauce with chunks of smoky pancetta and a foamed oyster mayonnaise.

There is a lot of technique in evidence here. For one dish, crab apples are slowly cooked in a rice cooker for 14 days before being blended with black garlic.

The final seasoning for the mushrooms is a dust made of roasted baker’s yeast with dried kombu seaweed and more maitake mushroom.

I tried a main course based around arepa – a type of corn cake from South America. Here the dough is fermented before deep frying. You stuff them with an aubergine sambal – intense, bitter and fruity – and labneh lifted with bergamot.

Dessert was an exquisite chocolate sorbet, made with a rare Porcelana cacao.

This a high-end restaurant in a posh part of town, which is reflected in the prices. There are two eight-course tasting menus, including a vegan selection, with optional wine flights. The two-course fixed menu costs £55, which feels about right.

In the wrong hands, cooking like this can be a dismal hodge podge of flavours.

But Scully is a brilliant chef – and the results are beyond exciting.

Scully St James’s
4 St. James’s Market, SW1Y 4AH
0735 951 9227
enquiries@scullyrestaurant.com
www.scullyrestaurant.com
@scullyrestaurant