Courtesan

Went again, still good and still fun.

Me and a friend decided to have dim sum for lunch on a Sunday, as is a usual tradition on a weekend, so we ended up venturing down South to Brixton to try out Courtesan. A bit of an odd location to go for dim sum, but we’re always up to try something (not so) new.
It was located about a 5 – 10 minute walk (depending on your speed!) from the station, and the exterior of the building looked quite old.
The interior was made to look like the inside of a traditional Chinese house (or something along those lines…)
In a way it was unique, although I’m not quite sure that I was a fan of the haunting painting of a woman’s face on the wall…
My friend had made a reservation, just in case, but really there was no need for it, as we were the first table to be seated, and even after a couple of hours there were only three tables filled…
There were quite a few unusual looking dishes on the menu, but we decided to play it safe and ordered the typical dishes that we were familiar with.
The pork and prawn dumplings were pretty decent, and the pinching crab dumplings had a nice, thin translucent skin.
The xiao long bao was unfortunately slightly flimsy and broke each time we tried to pick one up.
The king prawn with beancurd cheung fun was quite tasty, as well as the char siu buns.
We tried the prawn pheonix nests as it sounded interesting, but really the ‘nest’ was not as ‘refined’ and delicate as we thought they would be — more like a prawn-​ball with and outer coating of deep-​fried flat noodles. A bit clumsy to be eaten with chopsticks, so we had to use our hands.
We didn’t really order much after that as the dishes that we had so far were pretty average. I suppose that, and the odd location doesn’t really make it an ideal destination for dim sum.
The waitress who served us that day was really lovely though and food was served quite efficiently.
However, I think that I will stick to my usual places around Central London for now.

True to its name, Courtesan does court with you, tempting you with so many unique dim sum options that all sound enticing yet not outrageous. There is a good balance of originality represented in dishes such as ‘Crocodile Bites’, ‘Hot Frogs Legs’ and ‘Curry Pumpkin Buns’ infused with a choice of favourites such as ‘Char Siu Buns’ and ‘Cheung Fun’. I also appreciate the fact that they have gone to the effort of signifying whether the dim sum is vegetarian, spicy, gluten-​free and/​or dairy-​free. The variety of Chinese teas listed on the drinks menu is comprehensive and more than I can remember seeing on any menu in the past.
The dessert menu is yet more extravagant; the front tag-​line is ‘Dessert specialities to touch the heart’ and it looks like they’re not kidding, intricately described and categorised according to the esteemed chefs that created them the desserts do seem to have a lot of heart put into them. Examples include ‘Lychee & Rose Sorbet’, ‘Champagne and Japanese Peach Macarons’, ‘Ginger Tiramisu’ and ‘Cubism Frozen Mango Truffles’. Sadly I have not tried the dessert yet. But I acknowledge that the potential there seems to be without bounds.
So now to the nitty-​gritty, the food itself had its merits but was not quite as impressive as the fancy names on the menu may suggest. The puff pastry on the Mushroom/​Char Siu/​Duck puffs was indeed delicately light and well prepared but encasing too little filling, the Taro Coquette was a little too cooked crispy and again did not have much meat, the dumplings were all beautifully wrapped and presented with appetising appearance and colour, the deep fried squid was a bit of an anomaly (i.e. I wouldn’t recommend it), the Wagyu & Rib Eye Sliders were wrapped in good fluffy buns with genuinely crisp lettuce and juicy Wagyu beef, the Sweet Potato Rolls are also nice and fluffy but the sweet potato does not really come through and they were tiny, the Curry Pumpkin Buns seemed more like a novelty act as the bun is indeed curry coloured but I didn’t taste the curry element yet the pumpkin filling was interesting, the Spicy Mango Chicken was a bit of a non-​entity as I feel it was just crispy fried chicken breast with sweet chilli sauce and strings of mango laid on top, and finally the Jerk Chicken Parcel in Rice looked innocent enough but we discovered that the level of spiciness delivered by the Jerk chicken sure packs a punch (which seemed like more of a surprise than an added benefit).
So to wrap it all up, Courtesan certainly has some novel ideas and takes some risks where some pay off in dividends and others are forgettable. The décor of the restaurant and design of the menus are elegantly done but the fact that they only provide dishes without rice bowls and that they reuse paper printed menus (many of which had stains on) is an oversight on their part as it brings down the standard of the dining experience. Hence, Courtesan is a bit of a rough diamond but certainly a welcome gem in Brixton, a pleasant surprise given the plain exterior but genuinely a promising prospect with some delightful treats.

The décor is great. The pork and chive dumplings were good
Xiao long bao with lamb stew was a good variation on the classic. However they didn’t give us spoons to eat it with. Remember to get a spoon otherwise your tongue or the roof of your mouth will burn.