Kit Kat Club residency at Balthazar, London
Balthazar
There’s a lovely little window before the holiday season hijacks the diary of every restaurant you’ve ever wanted to go to when you can still organise an excellent, last-minute meal, and that time is nigh.
I very much suggest you make the most of it with this month’s restau selects.
Rewarding both healthy appetites a willingness to let lunch run into the evening (with a couple of limited-run residencies to give the chronically indecisive a useful deadline), here are the best places to eat in London during October.
The Kit Kat Club at Balthazar, Covent Garden
Already-theatrical Balthazar has launched a six-week partnership with Cabaret at the Kit Kat Club, running until 1 November, with Friday evenings bringing dancers from the production’s Prologue cast into the restaurant, alongside live vocals and a three-course dinner.
At £65, the menu is comfortingly committed to the brasserie brief, too. There’s duck liver and cognac parfait with a chutney of spiced pear, or onion soup beneath its Emmental lid, followed by confit duck with bacon, mushrooms and red-wine sauce. Those who consider steak frites the whole point of going to a French restaurant are also catered for, béarnaise included.
Puds and specially-crefted Brugal cocktails round things off rather nicely, packaging a practically parfait dinner and a show experience (with none of the frantic chewing required to make curtain-up elsewhere).
4–6 Russell Street, WC2B 5HZ. balthazarlondon.com
Beast, Marylebone
The scallop at Beast was quite possibly the best I’ve ever had. I appreciate that’s a large claim, especially for scallop gluttons such as myself, but I’m still thinking about it. The steak was also the best I’d had in some time, which made choosing a favourite dish a rather ridiculous impossibility.
Still, Beast really surprised me — what, with its elevator releasing me into an underground den of more gilet-wearing, 40-something men than I’d ever seen in one place. It’s a genuinely fun room to luxuriate within, with food to match. Long tables and candlelight give the room its elegance, while the atmosphere is casual and convivial, with excellent service making the evening feel far too easy for the price points.
Norwegian king crab is another of the restaurant’s great draws (though I’d struggle to return without ordering those first two again), and it pains me to admit it, but those men in gilets really were onto something.
3 Chapel Place, W1G 0BG. beastrestaurant.com
Aziziye, Stoke Newington
Aziziye, London
Lela London
Below Stoke Newington’s rather striking Aziziye Mosque is a Turkish restaurant with its own butcher and a menu that makes ordering for two feel unnecessarily restrictive. In fact, after months of passing by and vowing to book in, it turns out the only thing standing between me and a tableful of some of North London’s best Turkish food was my own poor admin.
“Dips” are arguably my favourite food, so the meze section was always going to get considerable attention, and Aziziye’s is flawless. There’s impossibly creamy hummus and tarama, cacık with cucumber and garlic yoghurt, grilled aubergine puréed with lemon and olive oil, et al. But the meat deserves more attention than my dip fixation allows. Mixed platters contain succulent shish and adana kebabs, while lamb beyti offers another beloved route among locals: spiced mince wrapped in flatbread with garlic yoghurt.
Safe to say, while Aziziye has been cooking for the community for more than 35 years, being rather late to the party doesn’t mean I’ll be making an excuse to over-order again at my earliest convenience.
117–119 Stoke Newington Road, N16 8BU. aziziyeturkishgrill.co.uk
Seabird × Ronnie Scott’s, Southwark
Seabird, Southwark
Seabird
Hear ye, hear ye: a Sunday lunch worth cancelling your Saturday evening for. Ronnie Scott’s is returning to Seabird (that really gorgeous spot atop The Hoxton, Southwark) for eight Sundays of jazz, blues and soul from 18 October to 6 December.
The four-course menu keeps Seabird’s Spanish and Portuguese influences in play, with jamón croquettes to start, scallop with Jerusalem artichoke purée among the starters, and whole sea bass, grilled and served with burnt butter and lemon, to share. Basque cheesecake follows, with a winter-berry compote.
Dining and DJs run from noon to 4pm, with the headline performance at 5pm. Give this one the afternoon, with tickets £80-£100, depending on your seat, including dinner, the performance and a mini Grey Goose Martini made to your preference.
The Hoxton, 40 Blackfriars Road, SE1 8NY. Book the residency
Coppa Club, London Bridge
Coppa Club terrace, London Bridge
Coppa Club
Coppa Club’s new London Bridge address comes with the sort of view that has visitors reaching for their phones and Londoners pretending they’re above it (spoiler: I wasn’t). Tower Bridge is right there, a wraparound terrace makes the most of it, and there are two floors inside for when the weather inevitably turns.
There’s a real crowd-pleasing energy to the menu too. Sausage and fennel ragù comes with bucatini, finished with Parmesan and herby breadcrumbs, while roasted hake gets a white-wine cream sauce, sorrel and crisp capers, while the fish and chips is, honestly, just as good. It’s an accommodating place to arrange dinner with friends whose enthusiasm for choosing a restaurant rarely extends beyond “you choose”.
One useful detail before you send the booking ‘round: this is the new site on the south side of the river. Coppa Club’s older Tower Bridge restaurant is on the opposite bank. Check before somebody orders a drink in the wrong one.
2 More London Place, SE1 2JP. coppaclub.co.uk
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