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NEW OPENINGS
MUST ORDER Hot butter devilled shrimps
transformed into something slippery
and rich, a comfortingly neutral receptacle
for accompanying chutneys of sweet onion
relish and pungent smoked fish: finger
food of the highest order.
SMALL PLATES
There's more mess from bone-marrow
varuval: wobbling gobbets scooped from
the bone into a punchily
spiced, curry-leafed and
coconutty sauce, to be
smeared on flaky, buttery
roti. Even if you don't like
bone marrow, those roti are
reason enough to order this
dish; ask the delightful staff
and they might bring you some more to
use as cutlery for an extraordinary dish of
hot butter devilled shrimps, which tastes
almost Szechuan in its intensely spicy
explosions of tiny green peppercorns,
cracking in the mouth like gunfire.
You could take a three-course approach,
using the hoppers, crisp, crêpe-like dosas
and small-plate 'short eats' ahead of larger
dishes such as Ceylonese spit chicken
marinated in what tastes like a whole stall
of spices. There are puddings, too: moist,
lightly crunchy 'love cake' or durian ice
creams that do little to rehabilitate the
reputation of this strange fruit.
But for us, the joy of eating here is in
taking the small-plate approach; we also
love the black pork kari (a pork-belly
curry), robustly spiced mutton rolls in
batter, and remarkable lamb kothu roti.
Every mouthful of this deeply flavoured
food thrills your synapses and keeps you
alert: this is not an eating experience to
zone out from, not least because tables
are shared in the narrow dining room.
And the price is perhaps the most
remarkable thing about Hoppers. Because
a meal with half a bottle of wine, two
beers or an excellent cocktail could easily
cost less than £40 a head: unarguably
a West End bargain for food of tell-yourfriends-all-about-it
quality.
Next from the Sethis is a Fitzrovia
branch of Bao, the Taiwanese bun
specialist that JKS Restaurants
backs; they have also invested
in Lyle's and Bubbledogs - as
well as their own Michelinstarred
duo, Gymkhana and
Trishna. What a family of
sure-footed restaurateurs
they have become: completely
in tune with these de-formalised times.
Gymkhana won our Restaurant of the Year
award in 2014; this is a no-less-deserving
winner, and we can't wait to see what the
Sethis turn their hands to in the future.
Every mouthful of this deeply
flavoured food thrills your
synapses and keeps you alert
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