I vividly remember the first time I tried duck. It was crispy and aromatic and purchased from Mr Yung’s, a Chinese takeaway in south Manchester. I swooned. I've been chasing that feeling ever since, and Impala in Soho may be the closest I’ve got. Dry-aged, roasted, and finished on a wood-fired grill, then glossed over, tableside, by a narcotically rich, fig-laced jus. Its lacquered skin is as darkly seductive as Tolkien’s ‘one ring to rule them all’, its rosy pink centre an extra prize underneath. The piece worth duelling for is the duck tender, which French chefs call the aiguillette, and usually remove it when cooking the breast. The lusciousness of this one made me think they must be hoarding it for themselves.
A colossal, ambitious menu
I've eaten at Impala twice, in the front room and at the kitchen counter, above which the ducks hang temptingly and diners get a full view of the grill-and-oven's electric double act. Still, I’ve watched with envy at the back room both times, with its red curtain, magnificent wainscotting, and inexplicable but alluring mirrors. The Dover has a new challenger to London’s most sultry dining room.
Exec chef Meedu Saad has Egyptian heritage, and the restaurant’s name comes from the Chevrolet that he sat as a child while being driven around Ismailia, the port city where he spent his summers. The selfish part of me wants him to tap more into that time, dazzled as I was during a 2014 visit by a miscellany of mangoes and charred seafood with spicy shatta. But how can I complain? The molokhia alone - supremely tender beef beneath a myrtle-hued gloss, brooding and sophisticated - is a near-unrecognisable transformation of the snotty soup I slurped in downtown Cairo.
At Impala, Saad reads north African cuisines through the adopted grammar of French and Thai kitchens. He wouldn’t be the first to filter a cuisine through Gallic techniques, but the latter, after seven years spent running nearby Kiln’s kitchen, is where it gets interesting. Mastering it is about controlling intensity, integrating funk and heat without pushing it over the edge, balancing smoke and freshness, and using bitterness to counteract umami.
It’s Saad’s judicious control of heat and bitterness, and his willingness to push balance to its limits, that gives Impala’s fare its distinctive flavour profile. Fresh, verdant peas snap brightly amongst dry-aged raw sea bass, and surprisingly Frube-esque blasts of pink peppercorn and mashua root, as garum whips you back into adulthood. The harissa in a sublime squid salad is so vivid you can feel the sun drying the pepper on a Djerban rooftop, but it’s never too much. A velvety white bean dip somewhere between the texture of hummus and tahini is layered with the gummy tang of bottarga and an herbaceous moss-green paste. Shefatalia, salt-forward round pork and offal patties wrapped in caul fat, are soy-brushed and intensely unctuous but soothed by an ambient, Brian Eno-worthy hum of cinnamon. To finish, a majestic tart with a deftly judged lick of salt, a layer of silky custard cemented with date paste, and an architectonic layer of pistachio dust surmounting it all.
It’s a colossal, ambitious menu best tackled with a group of greedy pals. Some things don’t hit as hard - monkfish wrapped in vine leaves lacks the confident complexity of other dishes - but this is also a palpably dynamic kitchen. A shiso leaf-wrapped crab kibbeh, laden with fruity, spicy peppers, was an improvement on the langoustine iteration I tried on my first visit.
For all their brilliance, Super 8 restaurant group’s Kiln, Smoking Goat, Brat and Mountain are still quite Thai and Basque. But Impala, their latest opening, is stringently resistant to categorisation. Originality is a genuinely rare thing to encounter in today’s TikTok-driven restaurant world, even if Michelin frequently gives out two stars to technically brilliant plates as dull as a James Milner post-match interview. Originality without ego? Even harder. But at Super 8, it’s a team effort. The group are some of the sharpest operators in the game. In its sheer originality, Impala is their boldest restaurant yet.
The vibe A big, dark, industrial room that feels effortlessly at home in Soho.
The food An eclectic journey across Egypt, Tunisia, Morocco, Turkey and Cyprus via north London.
The drink With around 40 wines by-the-glass, the French-focused list is carefully sectioned to make everyone happy, encompassing trailblazers and traditionalists. There’s also a small cocktail section.
Time Out tip Go in a group, don’t miss the duck, and try as many breads as possible. The tart cannot be missed.
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