Restaurants

With its red vinyl booths, open-plan kitchen, and 1950s automobile adverts, there’s a distinct feel of an American diner to this Marylebone establishment – something that extends to the menu. Many of the main courses feature meat substitutes: burgers, schnitzels, sausages. Our adequate starter of fried halloumi with tomato and chilli relish arrived at the same time as the mains, and so wasn’t finished. The schnitzel was delicious, but protein-substitutes tend to be dry and this needed more of its delectable white wine and watercress sauce. ‘Marylebone hotpot’ was warming, with nuggets of soya protein, beans and a nicely rich red-wine sauce. A neighbouring table’s enormous goat’s cheese salad caused food-envy and so we tried the successful ‘not niçoise’ salad, tofu replacing the tuna. With a huge skylight lending daytime brightness to the bare brick walls and exposed steel pipes, this is a cheerful – if sometimes noisy – spot, but we found it difficult to dine here during the constraints of an office lunch break; most other customers were relaxed shoppers not watching the clock.

Time Out Eating & Drinking Guide 2009