Earlier this year The Clove Club co-founder Isaac McHale opened French and Spanish inspired Bar Valette in Shoreditch, led by chef Erin Jackson Yates and her restaurant manager and sommelier partner Wilem Powell. Jackson Yates had previously worked at The Clove Club and at now three Michelin-starred restaurant Moor Hall and most recently had worked at Josh Niland’s fish restaurant Saint Peter in Sydney before returning to London last year.
What brought you back to England and The Clove Club?
Erin Jackson Yates: We didn’t want to be away in Australia for too long. I did some shifts at The Clove Club over the summer, and we ended up being in the right place at the right time because Isaac had the idea of opening a new restaurant and reached out to both of us to see if it was something we wanted to do.
What was the idea behind Bar Valette?
Isaac McHale: I had always wanted to do something more casual. It was not necessarily what I wanted to do for my second restaurant, but we had this space that was Two Lights, and I thought we could do this menu that had kind of been running around in the background for the past five years.
How different is it from Two Lights?
IMH: We certainly knew where we went wrong with Two Lights -– there were too many complicated small dishes that required a lot of work for not enough pay back. Bar Valette is about giving people delicious things that they want to eat rather than showing off about clever combinations. Part of that is because in France and Spain people are happy to cook food the same as it always was. We serve fried squid or prawns with aioli, and we make our own version of salsa espinaler, which is a Catalan hot sauce but is more like a red vinegar. It’s fun to tinker round the edges. We’re not doing fried squid with raspberries and eucalyptus air; it’s food that makes people want to come back.
EJY: The restaurant was sold to us [by McHale] as simple food, great ingredients, cooked well.
Are you targeting different customers to The Clove Club’s?
IMH: Bar Valette is a la carte and so is more affordable than The Clove Club, but it’s not a cheap restaurant. We’re buying the best produce we can – we pay £65 a kilo for our ceps, if you’d really like to have them then you can, but if you want something cheaper then that’s also fine. There have been some grumbles about the prices but I’m not opening Bar Valette to be a millionaire - it’s certainly not going to make me one – and it’s not expensive for what it is. There’s a stuffed rabbit on menu for £38 people can share, but I hope everyone doesn’t order it as I won’t be able to pay the rent. There are gastronomes who love to eat good food and simple dishes cooked well and I do think there is overlap with people who come to The Clove Club. The Clove Club is more refined, it’s got two stars, but it’s very stripped back and at its heart it is using the very best produce.
What was it like designing a more casual restaurant?
IMH: I always thought I’d be a technique chef where the focus would be coming up with new techniques for every dish, like finding a way to liquefy parmesan and turn it into tear drops. Then I came to do The Clove Club and realised I really cared about getting amazing produce and working out what are the best way to cook it.
What is it like cooking in a more casual restaurant?
EJY: My career has been in fine dining, so it’s been a big learning curve. It’s more simple food that requires different skills. It’s a very small team, there are only six of us - Wilem is basically doing all the front of house and I’m doing all of the kitchen stuff, so rather than trying to learn loads about food we’re trying to learn about running a restaurant. It has been fun to work with Isaac on figuring out what the idea for a restaurant is and what dishes we can put on the menu so people can have a complete meal. I’ve not done much a la carte before.
Bar Valette is currently only open for dinner. Would you consider a lunch offer?
IMH: We might look to expand the hours, but staffing is hard. I love eating lunch, it’s one of life’s great joys, but Shoreditch is an odd area. We’d have to offer a prix fixe at Noble Rot pricing to make it work and appealing to people.
Where did the name come from?
IMH: We spent a long time trying to find a word that was right. The Clove Club is named after the alumni of Hackney Downs boys’ school, that include Sir Michael Caine and Steven Berkoff among others, so after lots of searching we decided to choose another Hackney name. We found a street called Valette Street, which has some of the first social housing in Hackney and named it after that.
What was it like returning to Shoreditch?
EJY: It was quite surreal coming back to the same part of London that I know so well but haven’t been for five years. It was a step back into the past in some ways but felt different because I am doing something totally different. It is really nice to be back in London, the dining scene here is like nowhere else. The things we missed the most were all the amazing pubs like The Anchor & Hope, there is nothing like that in Australia.
Tell us your future plans
IMH: I’d really like to do a restaurant in Japan. It would be the dream to have to go to Japan several times a year. It’s the best place in the world for food and produce. I really wanted to move there but it wasn’t possible back then.
EJY: I would one day like my own place but that’s a long way off. I’m trying to learn from every different place I go, But I do love the fine dining, cooking it and eating it - that is where my heart is.