British food: bloody good in New York!

British food gets a bad rap, but local spots like The John Dory and Double Crown are putting the "great" back in Britain

By Elizabeth Gunnison
Special to Metromix

British cuisine: heavy, bland, stodgy. An oxymoron.

You can't blame the Queen's food for getting a bad rap, ranking it low on the NYC food chain after decades of disgregard—and subtle sneers.

But five years ago, British food finally got a toehold in the city with the opening of The Spotted Pig, which offered diners a sampling of gastro-pub grub like pan-fried calf’s liver with mashed potatoes, whipped up with panache by English transplant April Bloomfield.

Since then, British cuisine has steadily built on that buzz, peaking this past fall with a slew of Anglo (gastro) philiacs: The Libertine, from Todd English; British-Indo-Asian hybrid Double Crown; and—coming full circle—The John Dory, Bloomfield's British seafood shack.

“Americans have a fascination with Britain, but they’ve never had a great view of British cuisine,” says Josh Emett, executive chef of Gordon Ramsay at The London.  “But that’s changing.”

Pictured: Whole roasted John Dory for two with salsa verde from...The John Dory