Sarastro

One of my university assignments was to describe a favourite restaurant in London. Some artistic licence has been used, but this is a real place that’s well worth a visit.

Sarastro

Restaurants that fight so desperately to be near London’s Theatreland are more often than not the ones that Londoners do not want to eat at. Frankie and Benny’s, TGI Fridays, Angus Steakhouse, and more gastro pubs than Big Issue sellers; they all cluster around the gaudy, flashing sign of St Martin’s and the quietly understated charm of the Harold Pinter.

Unlike Paris, where you will still find the most glorious little bistro tucked away just outside the Moulin Rouge, or in Firenze, where the trattoria wins the hearts of savvy tourists choosing to shun the larger, brighter restaurants with their idiotic notions of kitsch. London has long since fallen foul of the food chain that requires restaurants to be American diner chic; overpriced, overcooked Italian, or the formidable, faux-French restaurant with its puffed up ego and deflated soufflé au chocolat. 

Theatreland requires gross overstatement, drama, and more eccentricity than you can shake a cigar at. Which is why the building tucked away on a quiet corner of Drury Lane, resplendent with its stained glass windows and bursting flower boxes, is so important. It seems to suggest a stubborn refusal to conform to the clean, modern, glass-fronted coldness of its neighbours.

Adjusting to the dull red glow of the chandeliers and art deco lamps is the first challenge. Next is the task of navigating a path through the tables clustered together in the centre of the room. Under your feet are creaky wooden floorboards, threadbare rugs and, bizarrely, square indents cut out of the wood filled with old copper and verdigris coins, that clink as you step over them. Velvet drapes conceal visitors seeking a little more intimacy in the balconies: Gothic, Rococo, Ottoman, Byzantine. Faces peer out, flushed, sweating, to watch the musicians dance in the aisles below, paying tribute to those rich or famous enough to enjoy the Royal Box at the far end.

Clay bowls filled with hummus blessed with whole chick peas and pools of silky gold-green olive oil arrive with fresh warm pita bread. More featuring cacik, kisir and taramasalata are laid out on the tables while the audience – more audience than customers – waits for the main course. Seafood linguine is a spicy mess of steamed mussels, prawns and tender, juicy squid; just the right level of acidity added from a squeeze of lemon. Lamb that falls apart in the mouth is a dream with stuffed aubergine, sweet red peppers and bulgar pilaf.

Rest rooms at Sarastro are tributes to sex. fauns and dryads dance across the walls, clutching at one another in an erotic, painted orgy while Bacchus leers at visitors from his stone plinth. Pictures from magazines featuring women of all shapes and chest sizes are pasted across the stall doors, and lipstick kisses in shades of cherry, plum, blackcurrant adorn the mirrors. It is decadence at its finest, all very Dorian Gray. 

Dessert is served on silver platters: fresh pineapple, grapes, watermelon, apples; Turkish Delight dusted with thick icing sugar; baklava – the lightest pastry – soaked in sugar syrup and topped with chopped pistachios; scoops of sorbet held snugly in coconut shells. Belts strain, waistbands stretch, hands try vainly to push away yet more food from the table: “Try this, taste that.”

A live python – muscles sliding beneath the scales – arrives on the shoulders of a handsome Turkish waiter, to be draped over those of  a woman at the nearest table. She squeals softly, shuddering at the weight of the thing and the coolness of its skin at the back of her neck. And all the while the musicians play their songs, violin notes drifting sweetly through those stained glass windows and out into the night.