Review: Barrafina Frith Street

Snap Decisions

Cecina de León, or air dried beef at Barrafina

I'm spending a few days near London before flying to Bangladesh for the winter, and so I'm taking the chance to catch up with friends in different parts of the city. I stopped at Barrafina last night with a friend - completely unplanned and more as the first stop of many during the night as we met up with various other friends. As such, we didn't have a full meal but I wanted to write a quick review nonetheless. Barrafina had always been on my recommended list for good tapas, but until recently I flew to Spain so often I never really made the effort to visit. 

The interior is small, brightly lit and seats no more than a couple dozen people on stools around a bar/kitchen while people queue near the wall behind them. There are another three or four tables outside, with overhead heating for the winter. I hadn't realised the nature of the venue before walking in, and it was close to Christmas so the queue was long. We were quoted an hour waiting time, but were offered drinks and nibbles to pass the time. Normally I would have left due to both the length of the queue and the seating arrangements, but while we stood around thinking about alternatives we were told they had a table free outside. Living in Scotland makes London feel quite summery (even in December!), and we though why not since we weren't going to be there for more than an hour.

Review: Dishoom

Upper Limits

"Thumbs Up do not do diets" 

I wish I meant upper limits in terms of food and experience. I don't. I mean upper limits in terms of patience. Don't get me wrong, my meal at Dishoom in Covent Garden was by no means a negative experience - kudos to the staff who handled an amusing hiccup in our meal very well - but I cannot recommend this place without adding a few words of warning. The first warning is about the queues. One Friday night, the hostess told me a table for two had an hour and fifteen minute wait. I laughed and left. This is a restaurant that does not take reservations for groups smaller than 6 - a seemingly effective marketing tactic that sees queues snaking all along the pavement outside. I've never understood why people put up with this. Plan ahead and book. If for some reason you haven't or couldn't, there are plenty of nice restaurants around that won't make you stand outside as advertisement. If you really do want to try the food, come back during a quieter period. As both friends in real life and bloggers online had recommended this place, this is what I did and dropped by for lunch on a weekday.

Top left, rose and cardamom lassi. Top right, water in steel
glasses! Bottom, Tamarind dip, didn't recognise the others.

Even then, the place was pretty full and we were shown to a table downstairs. I don't know what an Irani cafe should look like, but Dishoom gave me contemporary London vibes. A friend from Mumbai confirmed this - the interior was the closest imitation he's seen to an Irani cafe but it's not quite there. Initially there seemed to be a lot of pressure to order: we picked out drinks very quickly and were then asked about food orders twice in rapid succession. After turning our wait staff away for the second time things seemed to calm down. My rose lassi arrived, and I'm happy to report that it's the best I've had in England, dethroning Pushkar of Birmingham from the top spot.