H  ere’s a predicament: where can you go as a chef when you’ve cut your teeth with Gordon Ramsay, Marcus Wareing and Rick Stein, and cooked in some of the world’s best restaurants, including Per Se and Noma? If you’re James Knappett, you combine all of those career-shaping experiences to create your own restaurant – one that appeals to people who really know their food.

Knappett is Head Chef at Bubbledogs and Kitchen Table, the latter being a restaurant that plays to the seasons with a tasting menu that changes daily, and is built entirely around whichever ingredients are at their best at any given time of year.

“I was getting to the stage where I had a lot of my own ideas,” says Knappett. “When you’re Head Chef or Sous Chef in a restaurant, there’s still a final voice above you, so you can’t just go ahead and do what you want to do. You end up thinking, ‘If I had my own restaurant I’d do this’, or, ‘If I had my own place, I’d serve dishes like that.’ It gets to a point where you spend most of your day thinking about it and so I ended up saying to myself, ‘Let’s not just think it, let’s do it.’”

And so Knappett’s own venture was born. A combination of two seemingly opposing ideas that now sit harmoniously in the same premises, separated by an intriguing logo and the sort of curtain that leaves you desperate to pull it back and reveal what’s hiding behind.

“I really wanted to do Kitchen Table, and Sandia Chang, my wife and business partner, had the idea for Bubbledogs. We kept talking about which one we should do, and eventually we decided to do both in the same building. Sandia, sommelier for both establishments, is really passionate about Grower Champagne and I wanted to do smaller plates and cook for a smaller amount of people, so rather than having two premises in two different locations, combining them seemed like a good idea,” Knappett says.

There’s no denying that it’s working. Bubbledogs’ pink neon sign lures you in, and the trendy industrial interior tells you that only people cool enough to think of drinking Champagne with their hotdogs will be eating there. When we visited there were already hungry hipsters looking for a hot dog by 11.30am, 30 minutes before the restaurant officially opened.

The contrast is extreme, but both restaurants hold their own: “The diners we had sitting around Kitchen Table last night included four chefs, a food blogger and some really big foodies. It was a perfect night as everyone was here for the food. No business meetings, just for their love of food,” says Knappett. The menu at Kitchen Table changes each night, and the 12 to 16 courses on offer are tailored to whatever foods are in season and will taste at their best.

“We make up our menu depending on the produce we know we are getting each day,” Knappett explains. “Last night we had 12 courses, with slightly bigger portions. If we do 16 courses, the portions reflect the larger number of plates our guests get served. We are dictated to by the produce we get each day.”

At Kitchen Table, guests become part of the food experience. The conventional lines between the patron, the one who serves the food and the one who prepares the food become blurred as diners are privy to the magic that is normally performed behind closed doors. “Having Kitchen Table has really changed the daily routine of working in a restaurant, which I like,” Knappett says. “So I’m not coming in first thing in the morning and prepping a load of lunches and then a load of dinners and not really seeing anyone that I’m cooking for. And then it becomes formulaic – cooking the same dishes over and over until the menu changes, and you never really know if anyone actually enjoys it. That’s not the case with Kitchen Table. It’s completely different. Last night is a great example; a group of people who knew about food, and were interacting with the chef’s table experience. I like getting to talk to the customers and seeing them enjoying the food and answering their questions. It’s great.”

“The diners we had sitting around Kitchen Table last night included four chefs, a food blogger and some really big foodies. It was a perfect night as everyone was here for the food. No business meetings, just for their love of food”

Clearly Knappett’s success must have planted the seeds of similar ventures with other chefs. “There are other restaurants doing similar things. But we didn’t invent hotdogs and we didn’t invent the chef’s table concept, so it doesn’t bother us. We’re not really interested in what other restaurants are doing. We focus on what we do here, and we are happy with it.”

Knappett is upbeat about the current London food scene. “There are a lot of young, talented chefs in London at the moment,” says Knappett. “It’s becoming a tighter community where more chefs are willing to work together, whereas in the old days there was no way you were going to find out how chefs did certain things, so I’m really glad to be part of that. There are a lot of new concepts and things have also changed in that you don’t have to go out and spend a lot of money to have a great meal. You can go out now and eat great food without it being too expensive. Restaurants similar to ours are going to continue to open; smaller eateries where people are relaxed, they don’t need to be all dressed up and there’s a great atmosphere. For the meantime, I think this is how the restaurant scene is going to continue to develop, which is a good thing. It’s certainly good for us – people are eating, drinking and enjoying themselves every night.”

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For starters

Salmon, white beer and seaweed broth, cucumber, radish, herb salad

Knappett makes a broth using Einstök Icelandic White Ale, before adding sushi nori. He pickles red dulse, which has been salted, and sets to one side. A piece of fresh smoked salmon is warmed through before plating up. To serve, Knappett adds finely sliced kohlrabi (a member of the cabbage family), red meat radish and cucumber to the salmon, alongside the red dulse. He then strains the broth and pours it over the dish to serve.

Main course

Beer-braised Jacob’s ladder, pomme purée, wild garlic, home-pickled celeriac, beer onions

Jacob’s ladder (beef short ribs) was used for the main course, which Knappett cooks for 10 hours at 80 ˚C with fresh thyme, stock and Harviestoun’s Ola Dubh 12 beer. Once the beef is cooked, Knappett reduces the cooking juices to a glaze, and makes a breadcrumb topping,which is toasted in brown butter and combined with crystal malt, lemon zest and fresh horseradish.When it comes to plating the dish up, Knappett places the slices of beef on a plate alongside pomme purée, home pickled celeriac, roasted and beer-pickled onions and tops with the breadcrumbs and glaze.

Dessert

Poached pear, caramel ice cream, malted wheat flakes, mead jelly

Knappett lightly poaches  a pear and makes a jelly using Lindisfarne Mead. He then caramelises some malted wheat flakes. He serves the pear and jelly with caramelised cream ice cream and tops with the caramelised malted wheat flakes.

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