The Review - RESTAURANTS Published: 1 November 2007
Daniel Broch with XO head chef Jon Higgonson
Fine food, fit for the Everyman
Daniel Broch and Paul Miles, the businessmen behind Hampstead’s landmark cinema, join Dan Carrier for a smash hit meal at XO
DANIEL Broch says the XO restaurant in Belsize Village is basically an extension of his office, and as I join the owner of the Everyman cinema and his business partner Paul Miles for lunch, I can see why. It is comfortable and quiet, with a light and a varied menu. I believe you could, plausibly, eat there every day.
The XO is a Pacific Rim eaterie backed by renowned foodie Will Ricker.
His flagship place is ENO in Notting Hill, and he has taken the idea to the former Belsize Tavern – a place that holds fond memories for me, as I used to sit at the end of the bar when a teen as a friend of mine worked there.
It was a much-loved pub and is now unrecognisable – the inside has been completely turned inside and out. But it is a comfortable place, with a large dining room at the back.
Judging by the steady flow of customers coming in at lunchtime, it is a popular destination.
Daniel is a self-confessed foodie. He grows vegetables in the garden of his Highgate home, and he claims his daughters – aged three and six – say Daddie’s homemade Thai Cabbage soup, with the greens from the back garden, is the best dish in the world.
As we peruse the menu, we are given a bowl of edamame with crunchy rock salt crystals on top. They are green soy beans in their pods, and set you up nicely for the meal.
Daniel starts with spare ribs smeared in a heady black bean sauce, while I tuck into tempura. The batter is light, crisp, and the vegetables within – perfect thin strips of sweet potato, discs of avocado – may sound weird but it works a treat.
Daniel and Paul then tuck into bowls of green curries and rice, while I go for some back-to-front sushi: its called uramaki, and basically instead of having your rice wrapped in seaweed, the seaweed is wrapped in rice. It is delicate and the pickled ginger accompanying it is a gorgeous digestif.
With a substantial supper menu on offer as well, XO invites a return trip.
Surprisingly for a cinema owner, Daniel admits he has little interest in film. It was not his motivation behind buying the Everyman. He thinks for a moment when pushed and identifies his favourite film as the 1993 Christian Slater / Patricia Arquette flick True Romance – so much so he gave one of his daughters a middle name of Alabama, after Arquette’s character.
Nor was his motivation the wish to have the world’s most comfortable cinema all to himself when he feels like it.
Instead it was an eye for a property deal that put him in charge at Holly Bush Vale.
Daniel was working as a glazer for his father-in-law’s company. He recalls with clarity the day he decided he no longer wanted to do this – and it set him on the road to owning his own cinema. “I was sitting in a van at a set of lights in Wembley,” he says. “I was freezing cold. My hands were cut to pieces and I was filthy. I looked to my left and I saw an estate agents. Inside, there were some blokes a bit older than me. They looked smart and were laughing. I thought to myself: I’d like to be in there.”
He trawled round estate agents and managed to find a job as a junior. He eventually found work at a Temple Fortune company and rose quickly to become a director. And it was his eye for a property deal that led him to the Everyman. “The cinema had gone bankrupt – twice,” he recalls. “I looked at it and thought of it in terms of a property deal. I thought I could have my office upstairs and maybe a bar downstairs.”
But luckily for film buffs, he persevered with the Everyman for a couple of years, despite it not being particularly profitable.
He revamped the cinema – it has to be the most comfortable place in London to watch movies, with a downstairs screen boasting giant sofas that Daniel says gives dates a 100 per cent better chance of being successful.
They mix art house and indie flicks, special seasons and visits by film stars. It sits comfortably alongside mainstream block busters and this attitude has put the Everyman firmly in the mind of any one who loves cinema.
And with the Everyman a much-loved feature on the Hampstead village landscape, Daniel’s regular business lunches at the tables of XO are a recipe for success
