Larry finds an Indonesian outpost on the Strand that trades in understatement at street level and something far more compelling below it…
There’s a particular type of London restaurant that feels like you’ve stumbled into it by accident, and Le Nusa, a new Indonesian opening on the Strand, is very much one of those. The façade gives nothing away — it has more in common with a neighbourhood curry house than a destination dining room, easily dwarfed by the grandeur of the Royal Courts of Justice across the road. Walk past it with any sense of purpose and you’d miss it. Even once you’ve stopped and stepped inside, the room at street level — a handful of covers with suggestions of cultural decor — offers only a hint of what’s to come. Then you go downstairs.
A 60-cover dining room opens up below, punctuated by statement artwork, batik drapes and a hum of activity that feels both purposeful and convivial. It’s a reveal managed with the agreeable sense of having found somewhere most people are simply unaware of, even slightly clandestine. As the maitre d’ pours a glass of something sparkling and explains there’s a broader initiative, from their team back in Jakarta, billed as ‘bistronomy Indonesia’ to bring the region’s cuisine to a wider London audience, one begins to understand the intent behind the whole enterprise.
It’s an intent worth taking seriously. Indonesian food in this city is a relative rarity — beyond the homely charms of Toba, it has largely slipped through the cracks. And this is not a menu that’s going to ease you in gently. Rendang gets a look-in, but the usual suspects have been given short shrift. My companion Neil scanned the menu and, finding no chicken satay, announced he was evidently “in the wrong postcode.”
He was right, but he wasn’t complaining. As we perused, in lieu of poppadoms or prawn crackers, puffed onion and molinjo — apparently a staple of Indonesian snacking — arrived: light, brittle, with a faintly nutty, almost tea-like quality that sets them at some remove from anything you’d find in your average takeaway.
Starters set the tone rather well. Chicken and prawn dumplings arrived with a peanut sauce that made the case for why satay is surplus to requirements — richer, more nuanced, better in every sense. Chargrilled langoustines with a spicy tamarind glaze demanded full manual, messy engagement, but repaid the effort handsomely. And then there were the fritters, golden and crisp, which the third of our number, Michelle, was getting through at a rate of knots while maintaining plausible deniability.
The mains are where things get serious. A lamb shank, braised in a Javanese curry, had a presence that briefly stopped the table’s conversation — it’s that kind of dish. Neil had reduced it to its skeletal remains before the rest of us had properly got going. A grilled chicken came with a dabu-dabu sambal — green chilli, lemongrass and ginger — sharp and alive in a way that cut beautifully through the richness. A Sumatran-style beef shin, slow-cooked with galangal and turmeric in the Minangkabau tradition (a new one on me, and all the more interesting for it), delivered the sort of depth that unfolds gradually, forkful by forkful.
Between the three of us, we barely made a dent. Portions are generous to the point of excess, and by the time we admitted defeat — Michelle and I still engaged in a half-hearted skirmish over the last of the chicken, our shadow puppet-motif cutlery doing vaguely theatrical things — we were very much ready to lean back and reconsider our life choices.
Dessert was the second wind we didn’t expect. The decidedly unappetising-sounding kolak pisang — caramelised banana, pandan, coconut milk — might appear like solid, uncomplicated territory, but La Nusa’s version brings in sweet potato purée and a cashew biscuit to rather good effect. “I’d come back just for this,” Michelle said, and it’s hard to argue with her logic.
La Nusa is a curious one to call. It doesn’t shout, it doesn’t really even gesture. It just gets on with it, beneath a perfectly ordinary pavement on the Strand, and does rather well in the process. There’s a new menu that’s been introduced this April, so what we had may well be the precursor to something more fully formed. Either way, the secret, as with way culinary trends go viral, is always getting there before everyone else does.
Le Nusa is open now at 227-228 Strand, London WC2R 1BE. For more information, and for bookings, please visit www.lenusa.co.uk.
