Camilla Meshiea and Ryan Sheehan’s Counter 71 earned a loyal following in Shoreditch for its intimate chef’s table format. Now the pair have reimagined the venue as Appalachia, drawing on the culinary traditions of America’s eastern mountain range. This time, it’s personal: Meshiea’s mother’s family settled in Georgia before working their way west to Nebraska, while Sheehan’s Irish family put down roots in Savannah, where Meshiea and Sheehan later met and married. The space has been refreshed rather than rebuilt, with chef Ali Borer, formerly of Smoking Goat, brought in to lead the refocused kitchen.
Wallpaper* dines at Appalachia, London
The mood: A home from home
Meshiea says that the vibe at Appalachia should feel like she’s throwing a party for her customers – which means ‘flattering lighting and a room a little too small for the head count’. Extra covers have been created thanks to new countertops hewn from the same marble as the original counter now running along the windowsills, with flip-out stools squeezed in to make the most of the room. ‘At our launch parties, we could already feel the dynamic shift,’ Meshiea says. ‘Staff had to wiggle through a tighter space, and everyone felt a kinetic energy bristling in the crowd.’
The fast turnaround between Counter 71 and Appalachia was necessarily short to limit the time the restaurant was closed. ‘Independent restaurants like ours are a dying breed,’ Meshiea says, ‘so we’ve had to be inventive. Our design inspiration is informed by wanting our passion and personalisation to be palpable to customers. Ryan did a lot of the building work himself, so brings that sense of home and community to the space.’
Much of the art on the walls has come from the couple’s own home in Fulham: in the downstairs bar, Water Water is by painter Betsy Cain, a connection made through Meshiea’s friend Susan Laney of Laney Contemporary in Savannah, while Migration, upstairs, is by another Savannah-based friend, artist Lisa Watson. A giant textured mirror, meanwhile, also from the couple’s home, suggests mountainous topography. ‘I wanted the sense of Appalachia as a theme or concept to feel present only obliquely,’ Meshiea says.
The food: Fire and fusion
Borer’s cooking brings together the disparate strands of Appalachian culinary tradition forged from centuries of immigration and fuses them with fire-led, Thai-influenced technique. The result is a melting pot of American, European and Asian influences, which might result in anything from a curried crab omelette with chilli, ginger and seaweed butter sauce to a smoked pork chop with spiced collard greens, with sophisticated touches elevating the homely preparations: the butter-brined half chicken comes with miso grits and black pepper gravy.
With Sheehan in charge of the basement bar, called Lowcountry, the drinks here are as important as the food. Meshiea describes her husband as an encyclopaedia of bourbon, and the bar houses a collection of rare bourbons and rye whiskies. But there are contemporary takes on the American classics, too: try a banana pudding Sazerac, made with brown-butter-washed rye, vanilla rum, banana liqueur, absinthe and Peychaud’s Bitters – though not, perhaps, matched to the banana pudding choux bun on the dessert menu. You can have too much of a good thing, after all.
Appalachia is located at 71 Nile St, London, N1 7RD, United Kingdom