Kopapa Covent Garden

Kopapa is for you if you like a proper coffee and more exotic brunch options than eggs Benedict or a fry up.  The restaurant is in Seven Dials in Covent Garden and very conveniently located for filling up on fine food before a spot of shopping.  Executive Chef and co-owner Peter Gordon was also involved in setting up The Providores and Tapa Room and there are some very similar dishes on the menu.  Which is certainly not a band thing.

Kopapa has more of a relaxed vibe than The Providores.  It’s unfussily decorated, but still looks stylish. It’s buzzy and it’s already very popular so it’s busy.  Best to book if you don’t like to wait (which you can do via the website).  I kicked off with a lovely latte (£2.80) that was smooth, fluffy on top and had a real kick:

Followed by a mixed juice of carrot, apple, beetroot, ginger and celery (£4.50):

And then chorizo hash with a fried egg, rocket, salsa verde and crispy shallots   (£7.40):

My only complaint about this dish was that I could have eaten twice as much.
A bowl of ‘Turkish eggs’ from Changa restaurant in Istanbul (2 poached eggs with whipped yoghurt and hot chili butter - £6.20) was also consumed at our table.

This dish is always a bit of a shock if you haven’t seen someone else have it first, but the smooth, creamy yoghurt, punchy chili oil and the soft eggs are so successful the dish is a signature at both Kopapa and The Providores.  They recommend you should order toast with the Turkish Eggs and I think you’d be disappointed if you didn’t.

If you’ve bought your really adventurous hat with you, try the goats curd, puy lentils, samphire and grilled baby gem with pomegranate dressing and hazelnuts  (£7.80) or for something more lunch-y, grilled sardine bruschetta with roast tomato, rocket & garlic confit  (£6.80).  If menus like this make you want to yell ‘I just want some bloody eggs and bacon!’ you’ll be pleased to hear that not everything is so experimental.  There’s hot-smoked salmon on toasted sourdough with spinach, 2 poached eggs and yuzu hollandaise (£10.50) and a traditional fry up that will far surpass even the best greasy spoon with tasty eggs, crispy smoked streaky bacon, sautéed buttered field mushrooms richly flavoured slow-roasted tomatoes  (£7.80)

www.kopapa.co.uk

32-34 Monmouth Street
Seven Dials London
WC2H 9HA
020 7240 6076

The Langham Hotel - Best Afternoon Tea in London?

Some people don't consider afternoon tea to be much of a meal. I disagree.  It's got all the components for a balanced feed - savoury, sweet and clotted cream - PLUS you can have seconds (sometimes even thirds) and a doggy bag is standard.

The Langham Hotel's Palm Court won the UK Tea Guild's award for Top London Afternoon Tea 2010 -'the OSCARS of the tea world' - so it's a serious contender for the best afternoon tea in London in anyone's book and if you're a virgin tea taker it's a good place to start.  [Note: If you should arrive and find there's a screaming kid in the Palm Court drowning out the lovely tinkly piano, I'd recommend a table in the sumptuous Artesian bar next door.  Same tea and the cocktail bar is closer.]

We all ordered the Wonderland Tea (£38) which comes with a selection of teas (Earl Grey, English Breakfast, Lapsang Souchong etc) or a glass of Laurent-Perrier NV (£50).  One of these cake stands serves two people:

Starting on the bottom with the sandwiches, I didn't enjoy the salmon crème fraÎche ones, they were a bit fishpastey, but the beef with horseradish were good, the egg and mustard cress rolls were really tasty, the chicken with honey mustard delicious and the cucumber, cream cheese and chives, simple but excellent.

Next up, two light, fluffy scones, one with raisins, one without. Top these with lashings of strawberry jam and clotted cream (refillable) and then you're ready for the main event - the cakes. I think this top plate is probably the reason The Langham won the UK Tea Guild award so leave room for at least a forkful of each cake or you'll bitterly regret it.  We had (each) a deeply delicious blackforest dome, rich Valrhona chocolate mousse (topped with a tiny mini macaroon), a wonderfully moist mini cup cake with pistachio icing, blackcurrant and hibiscus syllabub and a mini handmade lolly.  To be frank, the lolly looked fun but was a bit of a waste of time, but the rest....we were a party of gossiping girls and no one said a word as the first forkfuls of cake were consumed, there was only a reverential silence.  This is some serious patisserie.


Palm Court is open daily: 8.30 - 23:00

Afternoon tea seatings: 14:00, 14:30, 16.30 and 17.00
High tea: 17:00 - 18:30


www.palm-court.co.uk

The Providores & Tapa Room - Marylebone High Street

Brunch is one of my favourite things, possibly my favourite meal, and every undercooked egg and bowl of soggy granola feels makes me feel sad.  Serve me bacon with fat that's still white and chewy and I might just start sobbing.

I went to The Providores & Tapa Room on Marylebone High Street last weekend.  Everyone always raves about this place but I wanted to find out if this was genuine excitement or that London thing everyone does when a restaurant doesn't let you book so if you've managed to queue long enough to get to taste the food, you feel like a VIP.  The first wonderful thing I discovered about The Providores is that you CAN book.  This seems to be a recent change  - you can even book through their website now which you couldn't before. We did and so we were upstairs - same menu, same coffee but a quieter room with white tablecloths and room to breathe (downstairs is quite 'buzzy' - sometimes that's not what you need first thing in the morning).

This is one of their Tapa Room Fry Ups:

Grilled smoked streaky bacon, sautéed buttered field mushrooms and slow-roasted tomatoes with a choice of toast (granary or sourdough) and a choice of eggs (£8.80).  REALLY GOOD.  In the middle of the table you can see the the Roast Stornoway black-pudding (£4.20) which I could live off forever it's so crispily, juicily, perfectly-spiced (edly) beautiful.  Over the other side of the table you can just about see the Thai basil and lime waffles with tomato, sweetcorn, rocket and avocado salad and jalapeno chutney (£9.00).  The waffles were much lighter than the fry up, fresh and really tasty, fragrant in fact.  If I'd had any more room I would have had the brown rice, apple, maple syrup and miso porridge with tamarillo compote (£6.00) and their signature dish, the Turkish eggs from changa in Istanbul – two poached eggs with whipped yoghurt and hot chilli butter with sourdough or seeded granary toast (£8.90) - see below (image borrowed from www.starsandcloves.wordpress.com)

The Providores has a newly opened sister restaurant - Kopapa in Seven Dials and I also went there last weekend (what a pig).  It was so excellent I forgot to take pictures so I'll just have to go back.

www.theprovidores.co.uk