A stately restaurant decreed
A cricket or locust at the Archipelago
“We had our breakfasts - whatever happens in a house, robbery or murder, it doesn’t matter, you must have your breakfast.”P. 90 The Moonstone. Wilkie Collins.
It wasn’t exactly breakfast that we ate, it was dinner, but it was a meal and it wasn’t to be missed. Besides, I’m reading The Moonstone at the moment and that sentence particularly resonated with my breakfast-eating ways.
Our dinner was in celebration of Autumn’s birthday this Wednesday and was at Archepelago, a curious restaurant in Fitzrovia. It’s famous for serving unusual foods, and not just original recipes, but strange and exotic ingredients. You’ll find bugs and bush meat rather standard, domestic flesh.
Once you’ve got past the foliage out the front and the gravel inside the front door, you have to give a password. Luckily I was still allowed in, as I’d completely forgotten about the password. The restaurant is quite small, with about 9 or ten tables, and it’s strewn with bits and bobs from around the world: elegant bottles, carved woodwork, painted Kashmiri papier-mache, and inevitably, bronze Buddha’s heads. The walls aren’t minimal or sparse either, but hung with even more exotica.
We took our drinks, including a Pond Life cocktail, in the tiny, peacock-themed ante-room at the bottom of the spiral staircase. It struck me that if the Kubla Khan had decided to decree a restaurant, rather than a “stately pleasure dome”, this woozy, over-wraught place might be it. It would make the perfect spot for a pipe or two of opium.
Upstairs, I started with feta baclava with a honey sauce, unfortunately wasn’t so much a sauce as pure honey and a bit overpowering. The other three had small green parcels of crocodile for their starters, which they seemed to enjoy; Autumn said it tasted like duck, but meatier.
For my main courseI had an obscure variety of fish covered in a fur of spices on a strawberry and mango salsa, and we all shared curried potatoes and bug salad. The fish was delicious and tender, the salsa mild and not too sweet complemented it well. The spicy fried crickets and locusts on the top of the spinach-based Bug Salad and gave it a nice crunch. Autumn had a rather gamey and chewy Kangeroo but still enjoyed it, Leonie ate Wildebeeste which she found a little too greasy and Joe finished his frogs legs. My light-as-air chocolate pud, was good, once they’d replaced the original solid-as-a-rubberball one.
The restaurant is a bit of a gimmick, but it doesn’t grate too badly. The staff are charming and the decor doesn’t feel like it was chosen by professional pub-themer. I’d say it’s fairly pricey, but I enjoyed my meal. My only quibble is the lack of chaise longues on which to smoke languid pipes of opium.
Tags: Archipelago restaurant, fitzrovia