Hansen & Lydersen smoked salmon

Sunday. The day of brunch.

I’ve been living in Notting Hill for about a year now, and have spent a decent chunk of that time exploring the multitude of brunch spots in the area. While Granger really is as amazing as they say (albeit ridiculously busy), about a month ago, we truly struck gold.

Goode & Wright sits at the unassuming end of Portobello, where the market stalls turn from food into fabrics and clothing, just before the Westway.

With an approach to modern British cuisine similar to ours at Boudicca, they favour locally produced goods, cooked fantastically, always fresh, and at really decent prices. Opened in 2011 by head chef Finlay Logan, it’s recently undergone a bit of a revamp and is now also fronted by Alex Herb (a former chef himself). The place is intimate, comfortable, and has a great atmosphere to it.

While my benchmark dish is usually avocado on toast (so simple, so easy to mess up), what I’m here to show you today is their Eggs Royal. I’ve never quite seen the dish presented in the way G&W do. They take the muffin (which I suspect is baked onsite, but don’t quote me), ‘core’ it, then put the poached egg inside, top with spinach/ham/salmon, add sauce, and place the removed bit of muffin – toasted – back on top. It’s cute, original, and means that when you cut in to it, you’ve got a perfect distribution of yolk to bread. It’s also only £8, which is insanely good value.

But because we’re all about championing the producers here at Boudicca, let’s focus on that salmon for a second. Oh my, the salmon.

I’ve had this as a side with the aforementioned avocado. Just yesterday in fact (and yes, I did go to Goode & Wright two days in a row – it’s *that* nice). Rather than a measly, thin slick of fish, this comes in meatier, thicker slices, which means you get far better flavour and texture.

G&W use Hansen & Lydersen salmon, which is an utterly wonderful company based in North London, who smoke the fish *to order* (which means it’s never frozen, vacuum packed or kept in plastic) in a traditional Norwegian way in an old brick building in Stoke Newington that used to house painting works. It’s because of this that you get the great texture, the fish isn’t destroyed by being frozen and defrosted.

Hansen & Lydersen smoked salmon, which won’t even need an introduction to many of you, is still made from a family recipe that was devised in 1923 by fishmonger Lyder-Nilsen Lydersen.


 It uses a subtle mixture of juniper and beech woods, and is now created in the same way it always has been by the fourth generation of the family.

They source the salmon from a sustainable farm between the Norwegian Sea and the North Atlantic, and prepare it less than 48 hours after it has been fished. The preparation means hand-filleting and hand-salting, then hanging and slowly cold-smoking it in the brick kiln of the smokehouse where it moves in the wind for 12 hours.

How cool is that? You can ever VISIT the smokehouse to see a live version of the video above, just email sue@hansen-lydersen.com

Buy online via the Hansen & Lydersen website.