Sylva, Folkestone Gardens, Trundleys Rd, London SE8 5JE

Chicken schnitzels and neo-soul: Who needs gold when you've got Sylva?

White-washed brickwork and half glass, Sylva gives ‘St. John breaking into the conservatory extensions business’, complete with an Insta-ready perimeter of bushes and boxed shrubs. Flooded with light, Sylva also conjures deeply-held memories of Birch in Bristol (the first iteration under Beccy Massey & Sam Leach and not the searing yawn it became after that) beforeSonny Stores, under Pegs Quinn and Mary Glynn, emerged to restore honour to the neighbourhood.

Sylva is the joint vision of Tel Aviv-born Shuli Wimer, along with Joe & Nick; brothers who supply restaurants throughout London. Like Quinn, Wimer is also ex-River Café, presiding over what feels like the realisation of a vision that’s perhaps been simmering for some time.

Before Sylva, it was Festa sul Prato; Italian for “party on the lawn” which Jay Rayner visited and loved, but this was in 2018, just before everything got extremely chill and very cool. Charming the locals up until its closure in August last year, Festa sul Prato was praised by Jay via an anonymous source that would turn out to be prophetic. “How to navigate the choppy gentrification-by-food water with grace and aplomb”, and I think that’s right". He also adds, “Good parks should come complete with cafés priced for as many as possible, which is what this is. It also happens to be a hell of a lot more.” Strangely, Sylva, as it stands today, could be described in very much the same way.

Special move: Up, down, left, right, spoon

Short, resourceful and built like a brick shithouse, it’s a Ghurka of a menu. Baharat-seasoned minced beef intermingled with plump giant couscous is doused with tahini yoghurt and strewn with more parsley. Pickled Shikfa chillies and wedges of Isle of Wight tomatoes, specifically recruited to compensate for the tight sacks of red water that wouldn’t even burst on someone being forced-marched to the gallows. Which, anticlimactically, don’t taste of much. Despite being served piping-hot during a heatwave (19°C), this dish treads the line between rib-sticking and light in a way that makes me ditch the fork for a shovel.

A whole aubergine roasted to a wimp is mounded with equally submissive chickpeas, tangled with verdant spinach, parsley and coriander, uplit with preserved lemon. A dorsal fin of toasted ciabatta laced with garlic oil lays beside, quietly waiting for you to do the needful. It's exactly the sort of dish Eddie Abbew throws his anabolic toys out of the pram for, presumably between rounds of accosting mums going to Iceland or families exiting food banks - so if nothing else, order it exclusively to annoy him.

Panic attacks come from carbs, not heavy steroid use, guys

The Schnitzel Sandwich™

Billed as ‘The Schnitzel Sandwich’, as if awaiting trademark, it’s cartoon-like in vibrancy; the cutlet achieving the same colour as those premade breadcrumbs the colour of Wotsits, yet Sylva’s is all-natural. It’s a snug jacket, sealing in the juices with no errant soggy pockets. Slats of gherkin turfed with parsley and more personality-bypassed tomato lay on top, between a ciabatta slicked with tahini and some alleged zhug; its absence conspicuous, as a bit of heat is all this sarnie needs to be spectacular.

The ciabatta, however, is excellent; structurally sound, loadbearing but tender on the teeth, similar to Max Halley’s rationale behind focaccia and judging by the baking racks and selection of pastries, it’s baked on-site. Delicately pickled Israeli cucumber flecked with sumac and Beldi olives with their prune-like, muted fruit tones are on the side because not everything needs chips - he said, deferring yet another check-up.

A fine piece of baking

A silt of chocolate and almond beneath a frangible surface, the ‘Torta Caprese’ is a fine piece of baking. It’s the only discernible fingerprint left by a five-stretch at River Café, according to aTwitter-lurking, but no-less trusted, friend. You see this with many places that carry the DNA of their beginnings, something particularly true of St. John (Birch Mk.1 being a prime example). From the brand of spartan protein cookery and plating, to the laser-cut tarts or just that grade of cooking of which only Nans are capable; a constant celebration of surviving a war and the end to rations.

It feels as if Wimer’s menu is a celebration of her freedom, too; stretching her creative limbs in choppy waters with aplomb, to borrow a phrase. Without jinxing it, Sylva might mark the latest boundary in the seep of gentrification, but they’re already doing much more than the cash-grabs synonymous with similar setups.

If pressed for some semblance of an afterlife, it could be somewhere like Sylva: an airy white room, rippling with dappled light as Erykah Badu and Jill Scott play softly from its corners whilst solemnly deleting a chicken schnitzel sarnie (tomatoes notwithstanding). The only thing making me certain I’m actually in purgatory, however, is the finger-drumming bellend across from me; the rattle of tableware emphasising his inability to keep time. He’s that strain of twat who pull out acoustics at parties unprompted, under the masturbatory misapprehension that they’re doing everyone a favour.

Look, by all means, air-drum in public or the privacy of your car, perhaps while an employee visits the grave of a loved one for the ten minutes you’ve allotted them. But slapping your clueless digits along with a Questlove beat is like demanding that D’Angelo check out your dry-humping technique. Luckily he stops to breathe before getting distracted by a crayon, which I'm sure he eventually ate.

In waters arguably no less choppy than its predecessors, Sylva might, perhaps, have taken on a cursed vessel. But this is a ship that’s spent time in dry dock for thorough upgrading; swapping timber for brushed steel and composite materials, along with other things I’m only just learning about for purposes of this review. Wimer’s dishes strike the same balance of generosity and refinement that made Birch and Sonny Stores so alluring; confident and precise as they are homely and thoughtful. I urge you to go. Just keep the timing to yourself.