Lunch at the Lasdun

A review

I am making my way through my friends and restaurants in modernist buildings. The deal is: I buy the lunch, they review the restaurant. And who better to start with than my old friend Huw Morgan, director of Graphic Thought Facility, whom I have known for almost thirty years? He wouldn’t like to be referred to as a foodie, but let’s just say that since I first knew him, he has been reading cookery books in bed.

I’m anxious. My mum has tickets to the theatre. I know—it’s a generous gift, a thoughtful gesture and I’ll probably enjoy it. Still, I can’t help feeling uneasy.

When I was seven, I ran from the front row of Newcastle’s Theatre Royal, terrified by twelve actors dressed in a Chinese dragon costume. They thought the director’s son (my dad) might like a close-up view. I didn’t. My childhood was spent in and around stages (my mum is also an actor), counting the lights in the rig and wondering when it might be over. You could say I have a difficult relationship with theatre.

There were upsides. There was always Coke and crisps, and possibly a late-night dinner at home with actors and my mother telling anecdotes as she dished out pie from an old roasting tin. Sitting in our tiny house in Stoke-on-Trent, it was a moment of glamour and comfort—just as it was years later, eating cottage pie at The Ivy as Al Pacino ate his at the next table. Food and show business have always been entwined, fittingly so, as today I’m at the mothership of British theatre—the National Theatre—for lunch, my kind of play. It’s surprising because the South Bank, the Thames-side location of the National, while being culturally rich (the Royal Festival Hall, Hayward Gallery and BFI are all neighbours) has never been noted as a destination for food. It has always been puzzling that the quality of one has never matched the quality of the other.

There are plenty of dining options, but it groans with the kind of experiences you’d find on any high street. In 2023, the National sought to change that, opening two venues backed by pedigree: Forza Wine, an offshoot of the Peckham-based wine bar, and the Lasdun Restaurant, from the team behind the lauded Hackney pub, the Marksman.

The Lasdun is housed where the original restaurant once stood and is named after Denys Lasdun, the architect behind the National’s iconic Brutalist home that has divided opinion since its opening in 1976. The then Prince Charles called it ‘a nuclear power station’, a remark that, if anything, highlighted its merit, later affirmed by its Grade II listing in 1994. That it remains relevant today is a testament to its design. The public spaces are generous, the carpets thick, the fittings hardwood and the handrails brass. It is a heft of a building that deadens sound and feels wholly theatre-y.

I arrive with one of my favourite dining partners, Stefi, and the large dining room is almost empty. The bell has rung to call an audience to the start of a matinee, a reminder that the mass influx followed by a mass exodus must be a fundamental headache for any theatre restaurant. Still, it gives us a chance to take in the space. The potato-waffle concrete ceiling is lowered here, transitioning from the grandeur of the public entrance into a space that is low and long, Corbusier-cool and oddly intimate. The fit-out is dark wood and white tablecloths, green velvets and bentwood chairs. A slab of marble marks out a long bar, ready to serve Lasdun Martinis. At one end, where we are seated, there is a glorious sunny-January view across the river.

Like the building, the restaurant is a tribute to Britishness. The menu is a warm embrace of classic combinations, the sort of thing my mum would have made and served to actors. Fitting for a team that hails from St. John—there are pies, rare breeds, and things that are potted and smoked. A starter of beetroot, egg and bitter leaves is a pretty bowl of colour—jammy orange yolk, perky pink endive and ruby beets. Wafer-thin slices of raw pickled beetroot add a playful hit of sharpness and crunch. A little more seasoning and the other half of the egg would not have gone amiss, but it was simple and clean. The potted pork and duck is a rich counter, a perfect rectangular prism of confited meat that Lasdun himself may have cast for the model. The toast is crisp and the fresh remoulade cuts the fat—everything you want in a terrine—though again, it needed more seasoning, and a mustard punch in the remoulade would have elevated it further.

There were choices of pot roast ham hock, fish cakes, and a vegetarian onion tart with Spenwood cheese sauce. We order a pie. Sharing makes me nervous, but Stefi is small, so I know this will be a win-win. Pies are a stalwart of The Marksman, so it’s a good choice. The mahogany pastry is as taut as a drum and shiny as a conker—crisp and buttery. The dark stew beneath has a confident simplicity, being just beef shin and porcini, letting both ingredients shine. The meat is yielding, gelatinous, and sticky in a way that only comes from cooking low and slow. The gravy has a deep savouriness that only comes from the care of making a rich stock. It is joined by some sweet cabbage, but the buttered potatoes, fries, or salad on offer would have all been happy partners.

The pudding menu is equally full of things I want to eat on a Saturday in January: sticky date pudding, Earl Grey crème caramel, and nostalgia-inducing soft-serve ice cream with strawberry jam. We opt for treacle and walnut tart and two spoons because I want the dopamine hit of something achingly sweet to compensate for Dry January. It’s not a slice but a single tart, elegantly made, though at this size, the pastry-to-filling ratio is off. I console myself with the clotted cream, so thick it’s one clot away from butter.

This is not food that will surprise, but it is good food, made with competence, care and a heart that is reiterated by the charming staff. At £38 for three courses, it is decently priced and it may be the carrot (perhaps with a boiled egg and whipped cod’s roe) that lures me back to the theatre. Or maybe the theatre will just be the excuse to return to Lasdun. Come to think of it, Ma, I’ll take those tickets.

Huw Morgan

First published on modernistestates.com
Photography © Stefi Orazi