For culinary purists there's something uncomfortable about fusion cookery and its attempt to unite two or more cuisines into a sublime other. It's a noble aim but it often ends badly. The fused cooking styles come away looking a little muddled and out of place, with nothing as delicious as it should be if it existed on its own terms.
But Tuyo in East London, just across the bridge from Broadway Market, has forced me to confront my prejudice about fusion food. Rather than try to consolidate cuisines separated by thousands of miles (and even more years of cultural tradition) into a single whole, the restaurant draws on techniques and flavours from a more historically and geographically connected locality.
The restaurant offers a broadly coherent menu of tapas-sized dishes to pick at and share, designed from a pan-Mediterranean portfolio of ingredients and flavours. As proof of its cosmopolitan influences, a selection of cookbooks, including Spanish, Italian and Syrian, is stacked on the shelf in the loo (hopefully never to be transported from there to the kitchen).
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Sitting at a table outside, on a fine summer's evening, the vague apprehension I feel as I look at a menu offering artichokes with both feta and parmesan slowly fades as I tackle a respectable Negroni. The restaurant has a buy one get one free deal on cocktails which means you get two of the same on a weeknight, though in the interests of research my partner and I try different ones. She opts for a 'saffron aphrodisiac' made with tequila and agave that fails to get her going, but maybe that's not the drink's fault.
We share some charcuterie and cheese, then order 'pinchos'. And this is where the fusion really starts.
Our first dish – prawns with pimientos de padron and a caper and tomato salad – is a disappointment. The prawns are unlovely and the capers surprisingly tasteless.
Happily, the success of the bream that comes next eclipses the failings of its predecessor. Served on a bed of earthy, on-the-tooth Puy lentils, and adorned with kitsch-but-delicious squirts of avocado puree and goat's cheese, the dish comes together in a savoury clang. The bream is well cooked, with crispy skin, and the avocado offers an unusual counterpoint to the goatiness of the cheese, which complements the lentils if not the fish.
By this point we're enjoying a medium-bodied blended red from central/eastern Turkey, which sits well with the artichokes. Feta and parmesan sound a little odd and they are, with their umami and tart flavours, but the chargrilled artichokes are very good, as is a substantial serving of soya beans, one of many vegetarian options. The meat-free dishes are well thought out, rather than tacked on as an afterthought, which makes an evening of meatless dining a reasonable prospect.
Not for us, though. Next comes an excellent spiced lamb tagine. It's served in a bowl, with a lovely carrot and sweet potato puree that's both salty and sweet. The tagine is deeply flavoured and the lamb has been cooked to the point where it melts beneath your fork. The meat is speckled with gelatinous traces of long-since rendered fats, lightened with Greek yoghurt, and seen off with the scrape of a finger.
Our final foray into fusion disappoints only by name – it's described as baklava but isn't. Not that it's any less delicious than the Levantine classic. It's a lighter version with almond pastry layered over minted yoghurt, garnished with fresh mango. Perfect with a coffee, it's true to the fusion ethos of the place.
Though transcendence may not have been on the menu, neither was disappointment. In its enthusiastic engagement with pan-Med cuisine – with only the occasional flop (quickly bolstered by new discoveries) – Tuyo in East London offers a deliciously fresh takes on old ideas.
Tuyo, 129a Pritchard's Road, London E2; 020 7739 2540; www.tuyo.london
