A towering frozen custard profiterole in a glistening pool of fish sauce caramel really shouldn’t work — but, if you’ve eaten at Belly, you’ll already know it does. In all its salty-sweet glory.
This dessert is just one of the creative dishes at a new Kentish Town Road restaurant that blends French and Southeast Asian traditions. It’s the brainchild of Omar Shah, restaurateur behind several long-running joints nearby, including Guanabana, the legendary Bintang — which dates back almost forty years to 1987 — and new openings Hoodwood and Mama & Sons.
Christened Belly, the bistro centres around wood-fire cooking, occupying the spot where his long-running ramen shop Ramo once stood. Stepping into the intimate 35-seater room, its interior undeniably leans into a Parisian aesthetic, with clean white tablecloths, bentwood chairs, and plenty of natural light.
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Blending modern Filipino and European cooking is admittedly a new one on me. But the succinct menu is clearly articulated, with intriguing descriptions of the half dozen smaller dishes and four larger plates, plus a handful of sides.
Fans of all things piscine, my partner and I began with cured scallops: warmed through with a vinegar and fermented shrimp coconut sauce, these slid out of their shells as smoothly as oysters.
Sure it was a humid evening, but we still enjoyed the caldereta, pictured at the top of this issue, a stew typical in both Spain and the Philippines. The seafood version here (rather than a more traditional meat affair) was pressed onto us by the friendly server — and I can understand why. A hearty medley of clams, mussels, baby squid, tomatoes and red peppers, its gentle flavours were turbo-charged by a dollop of prawn head aioli, while a squeeze of calamansi, similar to lime, added a sharp note of acidity.
An umami-laden highlight? Belly’s elevated take on a fish burger: a chunk of cod tempura, the flesh just opaque, was held within a pandesal slider (a Filipino breakfast roll) and doused with ikura (salmon roe) tartare sauce and a slice of that plastic American cheese we all know and love. The result? Utterly moreish: apparently, they only make a handful a day, so when it’s gone, it’s gone.
And our two sides worked perfectly: nutty pink fir potatoes smothered in kombu butter (we polished off the lot), and a crisp bitter leaf salad to cut through the richness.
Cocktails include a negroni made with Pandan gin, while wine starts at £8 a glass (£36 a bottle); recommended is the organic Austrian orange wine Judith Beck Traminer (£11 a glass), and the French Languedoc red (£9).
Service, headed up by extremely chilled manager Aliya, was so warm it made us want to return in a flash. This is brave cooking — and surely the best new opening in Kentish Town since The Parakeet back in spring 2023. Plates cost from £8-31. Follow @belly_bistro, 157 Kentish Town Road, NW1
Thanks to Belly for hosting us on this occasion.
