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Please note: This is a January 2020 review of Arcade Food Theatre. The venue has since reopened as Arcade Food Hall under new management and with a different roster of vendors.
At this ‘food theatre’ (read: fancy food court), there are a total of seven mini-kitchens plying their wares. Most are at street level (currently: tacos, posh kebabs, steak, fusion sushi, piri piri chicken, and pasta), but if you head up to the small but swish mezzanine lounge, you’ll also find katsu sando sarnies for sale.
Don’t go expecting a cheap lunch though: most of the signature dishes hover around the £12 mark, and that’s before drinks. And while this might be what you’d expect to pay in a restaurant, the truth is, eating here isn’t like eating in a restaurant. With its double-height ceilings, glass sides and various hard surfaces, the space feels a little like an airport departure lounge. Albeit one with slick mid-century furnishings and funky tunes (though these are somewhat drowned out by the general clatter).
The food itself is mixed. Of the current vendors, our favourite was Casita do Frango (go with a pal and order the £10 piri piri chicken and a bowl of the African rice: it’s only £6 but a meal in itself, not to mention utterly delicious). Least impressive? Chotto, where everything we ate was clumsily made.
Final tip? Take your own tupperware: at the time of reviewing, we were told that we couldn’t get any of the food – except for pastries from the coffee stand – ‘to go’. But who’s to stop you from surreptitiously DIY box-ing?