'It had the texture of set custard': What it's like to tuck into brains

The Independent’s new roving foodie enjoys calf’s brain in Marylebone

The brains were presented on a square of toast and drizzled with a capery meunière sauce (Stefan Johnson Photography - courtesy of greatbritishchefs.com)

Before I ate brains I imagined they would have a spongy texture and a bloody, ferrous taste.

The lump of calf’s cerebrum served to me at Clipstone in Marylebone last week was nothing like that.

It was grilled to the point of firmness and the flesh gave way like set custard, with a flavour nearly as creamy.

I know we're all meant to be nose-to-tail offal lovers these days, but I found it surprising.

Ox tongue with radish and sour cream

I kept remembering the neurosurgeon Henry Marsh's memoir, Do No Harm, where he describes feeling like his drill is going through a patient's hopes and dreams.

I wondered which bovine ex-thoughts were being squished between my molars.

The brains were presented on a square of toast and drizzled with a capery meunière sauce, neither of which were quite up to the task of mitigating all the creamy smoothness.

The dishes at Clipstone are all offered as sharing plates, but the brains is one to split four ways rather than two.

Clipstone's founders started Portland, just around the corner, which earlier this year had its low-key brilliance rewarded with a Michelin star.

The new venture is even more relaxed but shares its conviviality. A warm glow welcomes you in from the road under white awnings.

The interior of Clipstone, in Marylebone

The kitchen is open, the chefs look busy, the lighting is tasteful. Our waitresses were a well-groomed part of a well-oiled team. Perhaps slightly too well-oiled - we weren't allowed long to admire the scenery or judge the other diners - but charming.

Brains aside, we were brought a selection of deceptively simple dishes, most of which were faultless.

Crunchy caramelised walnuts nestled in silky ribbons of lardo. A bowl of tomatoes was a Benetton array of all the fruit's colours, shapes and sizes. Ox tongue with radish and sour cream somehow had the flavours of a salt-beef bagel stripped bare.

There was something slightly fishy about the clam pizza, but maybe that's to be expected, and the Paris-Brest we shared for pudding was a bit gloopy, a bit sweet, a bit much.

Other than that, little to complain about.

The Paris-Brest dessert was "a bit gloopy, a bit much"

By way of introduction, I plan to visit these restaurants as a hungry reader would.

I have a job working across the Evening Standard and Independent, but I will not be paid any extra for the reviews and will be claiming no restaurant expenses.

I've reviewed in that style for other newspapers and always felt vaguely fraudulent. It's like rating the champagne at a wedding: nobody eats in the same way off someone else's credit card.

Every penny of the £85.50 I paid at Clipstone - for eight dishes and a half-bottle of Riesling - came out of my own post-tax income. I would happily pay it again. There are few better tests.