5 Dishes to Try at Tollington’s

Harry Speake is the head chef at Tollington’s, Four Legs’ answer to a Spanish seafood bar in a former chippy in Finsbury Park. Here’s Harry, who grew up in Portugal, on five dishes he recommends you try at Tollington’s. The menu changes daily so just ask what’s good.

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Tuna steak, sweet potato and chimichurri

We get nice tuna from Cornwall, some of the British tuna that has been allocated to British fishermen over the last couple of years. Someone was telling me this dish was like a ‘90s girl dinner with the tuna steak. That wasn’t my target market! It’s an Algarvian-style dish – sweet potatoes are something they eat quite a lot in the Algarve. At the market, they’ll give you a whole sweet potato wrapped in foil with honey and cinnamon on top as a sweet treat.

Sardines

Sardines on the plancha with lots of nice olive oil. I like my sardines salty. I’m not shy on the salt on sardines; it brings out the flavour. Again, it’s a Portuguese classic. There’s an annual sardine festival in Lisbon where the whole city takes their barbecue out onto the street and serves sardines. It’s the equivalent of Notting Hill Carnival in terms of the mass of people on the streets.

Frita de pulpo

This kind of means a “fry up of octopus”. It’s an Ibizan dish of cooked octopus with fried potatoes, onions, peppers and paprika. It’s a sloppy dish cooked in a pan and served in cafés around Ibiza. We were there a month ago and I had it for breakfast one day. I put it on the menu after that.

Chips bravas

We steam our chips then we fry them in veg fat and they’re finished in beef fat and served with a spicy bravas sauce. Bravas means bold so it’s a very punchy tomato sauce and punchy aioli on top. It’s not the tradition to have them with aioli in Spain but everyone in the UK loves mayonnaise.

Passionfruit semifreddo with white chocolate and almonds

I really like this dessert. It’s a bit over the top, a bit ‘70s, really camp. The image that was in my head was a Viennetta.