(Bloomberg) -- Before they got into the restaurant business in 2014, siblings Zoe and Layo Paskin were best known for their contributions to the UK club culture. Their groundbreaking dance music venue the End, near the British Museum, had a pioneering sound system and a sprung dance floor to go easy on clubbers’ knees.
Since then, they’ve notched multiple hits in the West End. There’s the Palomar, their ode to Jerusalem’s late-night culinary culture; Evelyn’s Table, a micro Michelin-starred 12-seat spot; and the duo’s most famous place, the Barbary. The hidden restaurant, whose name pays homage to the Barbary Coast and its culinary influences is dominated by a horseshoe-shaped counter that surrounds a compact, hectic kitchen. The set up allows diners to watch the chewy Jerusalem bagels, grilled halloumi and succulent spice-rubbed pata negra ham get cooked and plated before being passed across the counter to them.
Now the Paskins, along with their design-minded father Douglas, have expanded their empire to Notting Hill, the grand stucco-fronted neighborhood that retains a faint accent of its bohemian past, along with a burgeoning reputation for attracting gastronomic luminaries.
The New Neighbors
The eye-watering uptick in the neighborhood’s property prices (£32 million, or $42 million, house sales are routine) has paved the way for 3-starred establishments like the Ledbury and Core to thrive. It’s also made the area a destination for some of the city’s buzziest restaurants, such as Dorian and the gastropub the Pelican. So Barbary’s move into that West London enclave seems like a no-brainer.
The restaurant occupies the ground floor of an imposing corner site. With its floor-to-ceiling glazed Edwardian showroom facade, it’s a big-budget sequel to the very intimate original. Like the Covent Garden Barbary, it has a warm, inviting glow and thoughtful design, with sinuous recessed lighting that spotlights the mahogany carpentry and a hand-woven rattan paneled ceiling. The L-shaped room is divided between counter seating enveloping the kitchen (think Edward Hopper’s Nighthawks), and the more plush velvety banquette and booth seating circling out to 94 seats in all.
Bloomberg got an early look at Barbary Notting Hill, which opens officially on Sept. 12.
The Food
All the action is around the kitchen, which boasts a wood-fired oven and gleaming tiered Japanese robata grill. The menu is loosely sectioned into snacking, small plates, larger dishes and sides. Several of the greatest hits from the Covent Garden prototype are here, most notably the fried violet artichokes, at £7.50 ($9.80), which remain one of the best mouthfuls in town. The dainty buds—crisp, with sweet earthiness—pair with cooling sumac-flecked labneh. The flatbread anointed with za’atar arrives nicely blistered from the wood oven and can be deployed to soak up the labneh and juices from another small dish, sweet and spicy peppers with tulum cheese (£11.50). A skippable dish: the duck confit cigar (£8), a diminutive snack with not enough pastry to filling.
Among first courses, cornish squid (£22) is highly recommended by staff and comes flying off the plancha with a smoked tomato sauce. On an early night, it could have used a little more time there; it’s pale and too chewy. On the must-order dish for next time is house-made merguez.
The star of the larger dish section is undoubtedly coffee rub chicken (£26), another mainstay of the Covent Garden menu. On that early night, the robata grill was already groaning under the weight of chicken legs, cloaked in cardamom, chilli, orange zest, brown sugar and ground arabica. Other notable dishes jostling for space on the robata were harissa lamb cutlets (£32) and whole wild sea bass (£39). The crispy Persian rice dish tahdig (£9.50) is a standout, a versatile side to go with the stronger second half of the menu.
Two desserts worth ordering are the much-feted pistachio hash cake, a buttery pecan pie-like slice, and basbousa, the Egyptian semolina pudding cooked in a turmeric-tinged coconut milk and singed in the wood oven.
A Wine List for Deep Pockets
Nearby Dorian has already helped make the neighborhood a destination for a wine-obsessed clientele with money to burn. Notwithstanding the tempting roll of cocktails, the depths of the Barbary’s wine list require deep pockets—rare bottles of Château Margaux, Krug and Yquem all feature on it. Further up the list, however, is a terrific glass of Rkatsiteli (£9), unfiltered natural orange wine from Georgia, and Barbagia Rosso (£14), a silken Sardinian red, great for more robust, spice-infused plates.
When the Paskins opened the End almost 30 years ago, there was a delay in getting their alcohol license in time. Unperturbed, they went ahead with the opening night party and gave the booze away free. That sense that the money is secondary lives on here (although it’s not a cheap place to eat); notwithstanding the sleek stylings and gastronomic polish, the feel is more of a family-run neighborhood restaurant. Purists can, and surely will, argue that the new spot doesn’t have the same energy as the original. But now Notting Hill has a hot new hangout, complete with a good-times playlist, and a room that, on that early night, was packed with evidently excited locals, ready to be regulars.
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