A review of Sessions Arts Club in Clerkenwell, London - YOU Magazine Fashion Beauty Celebrity Health Life Relationships Horoscopes Food Interiors Travel Sign in Welcome!Log into your account Forgot your password? Password recovery Recover your password Search Sign in Welcome! Log into your account Forgot your password? Get help Password recovery Recover your password A password will be e-mailed to you. YOU Magazine Fashion Beauty Celebrity Health Life Relationships Horoscopes Food Interiors Travel Home Food Tom Parker Bowles Sessions Arts Club review By Tom Parker Bowles - May 22, 2022 Tom finds fun again at a London restaurant where the food is as fine as the surroundings. Review Sessions Arts Club Well, it’s certainly a looker, the Sessions Arts Club in Clerkenwell, housed in old Middlesex Court House. It feels like an elegantly faded Italian palazzo, all soaring arches, ornate cornices and tastefully peeling plaster. ‘It costs a lot of cash to look this old,’ says my friend Matthew, sipping a blood orange tequila sour. He may have a point but the room is one of London’s finest, no doubt about that. The dining room, housed in an old courthouse, is one of London’s finest. Image: Beth Evans The food, from Florence Knight – a hugely talented chef whose cooking just seems to get better and better – effortlessly matches the surroundings. Ostensibly Italian, she makes no claims as to absolute authenticity. Her personality, though, is stamped on every dish. And what a menu it is. Flavours can be big and bold – a great burnished crab croquette, barely able to contain its oozing, swaggering, salty sea-dog centre. Or crisp pane carasau topped with a mess of bitter cavolo nero, spiked with anchovy and topped with grated bottarga. What could be fishily overwhelming is exquisitely judged, strident but somehow soothing. Potato and eel cake has a splendidly stodgy heft, the chunks of smoked fish lifting the crisp confit potatoes from everyday to exalted. Baby artichokes are deep fried in the Roman style, at once crisp, soft and chewy. There’s delicacy, too: slivers of raw sea bream sitting in a limpid broth of tomato water swirled with verdant parsley oil. Baby turnips add sweet crunch. A silken purée of cannellini beans, with the most gentle garlic sigh, is topped with grilled, still crunchy friggitelli peppers. Again, texture is every bit as important as taste. In a main dish of squid with calamarata pasta, it’s hard to tell cephalopod from carbohydrate. And that’s the point, the rings bathed in a rich tomato sauce. A sliver of immaculate chocolate tart renders us both speechless, a rare thing indeed. Service is every bit as fine as the food, as you’d expect from a team trained by the great Jon Spiteri. Warm without being over-familiar, with a genuine knowledge of the food. On a packed Thursday lunch, with the sun streaming in, and the clatter of knife on plate, it reminds me of old, carefree days. Because Sessions Arts Club, like all good restaurants, is not just about the menu. But fun, real fun – the one ingredient that really cannot be bought. About £40 per head. Sessions Arts Club, Old Sessions House, 24 Clerkenwell Green, London EC1; sessionsartsclub.com RELATED ARTICLESMORE FROM AUTHOR Kids can eat for free at these restaurants during October half-term How to make the viral negroni sbagliato with prosecco at home 7 Halloween recipes with serious hex factor Popular in Food Gabriela Peacock 14-day plan Anytime baked eggs May 23, 2021 Joe Wicks’ maple-glazed chicken thighs with Asian slaw June 6, 2021 Mary Berry is returning to TV screens for a brand new June 15, 2021 Eleanor Maidment My summer taste notes July 4, 2021 Uyen Luu’ s sticky mustard marmalade ribs July 25, 2021 Annie Bell’ s white peach bellinis recipe August 8, 2021 M& S has launched a new crunchy Caramilk-inspired golden chocolate spread August 24, 2021 Deliciously preserved pickle and jam recipes September 19, 2021 Gordon Ramsay’ s bang bang cauliflower October 3, 2021 Wow right now Clodagh McKenna’ s speedy family dinners October 24, 2021 Popular CategoriesFood2704Life2496Fashion2240Beauty1738Celebrity1261Interiors684 Sign up for YOUMail Thanks for subscribing Please check your email to confirm (If you don't see the email, check the spam box) Fashion Beauty Celebrity Life Food Privacy & Cookies T&C Copyright 2022 - YOU Magazine. All Rights Reserved