Helena Lee on why dining at restaurant bars can be the better option for the casual supper in London.
The ritual of eating dinner out mid-week can be a laboured affair when all you want is a taste of something good with a well-earned drink. Invariably your choice spot will be fully booked or if a no-reservations establishment, bursting with an unappealing queue.
At times like these, bars attached to restaurants are a good option: consider it the more social and informal way to eat at over-subscribed places. The reward is manifold. Take Dabbous, the hot ticket of 2012 that continues to impress with its understated yet exquisite dishes. The truth is, its booked out for dinner until 2014, which turns it from neighbourhood to occasion restaurant. But below is Oskars Bar that services Dabbous with drinks, and in turn has a menu of food from the Michelin-starred kitchen. Not only is head chef Ollie Dabbous signature dish (coddled egg with woodland mushrooms and smoked butter) on the bar menu for a reasonable £8, but also bar classics (crispy chicken wings) and more substantial treats such as Iberico pork with savoury acorn praline (again, on the tasting menu upstairs). And service? The same quality of service exists below as it does above, just of a more low-key and conversational ilk.
In fact, its fruitless to think of Oskars Bar and Dabbous as separate entities; they were conceived together. I always wanted a bar and a restaurant, as did Ollie, says proprietor Oskar Kinberg. He dreamt up the idea five years ago with Dabbous when they worked together at the Cuckoo Club and are now business partners.
Restaurateur Mark Hix is an advocate of countertop dining. My philosophy ever since my Caprice days [he was chef director for the group] is that the bar is a very important part of the restaurant. At Marks Bar, below Hix in Soho, hes created a barsnax menu of savoury nibbles such as pork crackling, cuttlefish ink croquettes and quails eggs. Its not a meal, says Hix, but you can turn it into a meal. But its not just a place for grazing, theres also the option of ordering a la carte from the restaurant menu.
I love the fluidity of this way of eating, with no set dance you can stay as long or as little as you like. And socially, theres that interaction with the barman which is so key to a good bar and means its fine to eat alone. Yes, and thats where you need a character cocktail barman to be serving you says Hix. At Oskars personality manifests itself through the cocktails named Grape Expectations (a literary number that was named by a member of Bazaar) and Pump up the Jam (which Ive had served with a little dance). We deliver in flavour, says Kinberg, without taking ourselves too seriously.
Other good places to wet whistles and eat merrily are the subterranean Shochu Lounge, Hawksmoors Spitalfields bar and Quality Chop House wine bar. They deliver the pleasure of drinking without any compromise on the food. Thats my kind of pleasure.
Mark's Bar, 66-70, Brewer Street, London, W1F 9UP, 020 7292 3518
Oskar's Bar, 39 Whitfield St, London, W1T 2SF, 0207 323 1544
Shochu Lounge, 37 Charlotte Street, London, W1T 1RR, 0207 580 6464
The Hawksmoor Spitalfields Bar, 157 Commercial Street, London E1 6BJ, 020 7426 4856
The Quality Chop House wine bar, 94 Farringdon Rd London, Greater London EC1R 3EA, 020 7278 1452
Written by Helena Lee
