Review at a glance: ★★★★★
The usual rule of menus is this: met with an indecipherable ingredient, assume it to be an obscure cheese or avant-garde mushroom. Most of us learn this the hard way with Hen of the Woods, when the promise of a hearty chicken dish from some rustic French backwater unveils itself as an oil-slicked fungus. Demoralising. But such an approach will not work at Impala, unless you are particularly au fait with northern Africa. You need to know where Djerba and Nabeul sit, what sheftalia is, how aish baladi differs from ftira. This is a restaurant to revise for.
When founder Meedu Saad was kicking the tyres of his idea, he said it would be a kind of Egyptian brasserie, drawing on his bloodline, time as head chef at Kiln and classical French training. Maybe it was, once. Now, though, it is something ineffable, defying typology. I joke to Saad that London might one day talk about “going for a Meedu”. Modestly he demurs: all it is, he says, is a London restaurant. He is not wrong. This city has a knack for restaurants that invent their own style: newly opened Teal by Sally Abé; West-African-but-not-really Ikoyi; Tomos Parry’s Welsh-Basque Mountain. Fusion food without the naffness. These kinds of restaurants accept that chasing “authenticity” does not protect culture but limits it.
It is authentic, though, Impala — authentic to Saad. It is authentic to his childhood holidays in Ismailia, to growing up in Tottenham, to his teenage years scrubbing plates in a Turkish Cypriot greasy spoon just off Turnpike Lane. Authentic to his years at Kiln cooking food from Thailand, Burma, Laos. It is named for a car he used to ride in Egypt, a cherry red 1964 Chevrolet Impala. The wine list and folio the bill arrives in are the same colour. His favourite drink, a Long Island Iced Tea, floats near the top of the drinks list, only slightly gussied up.
Saad is backed by Super 8, London’s most influential restaurateurs (Mountain is theirs too). They have a style, and here it is dialled high: a room of flickering candlelight, loud with Hammond organ funk, D’Angelo and the chattering of the best-looking crowd I can remember away from a catwalk. It is so dark photos are impossible: anti-influencer lighting, there to keep you off your phone and in the moment. There is an open kitchen and a smouldering grill, fanned constantly to keep it searing hot, just as in any north London mangal. The extraction system has welted doors, as though pilfered from a submarine. It feels here, with all the wood and candles and concrete, all at once a little late 1950s and remarkably of the moment. You walk in and think: yes, this is the place to be.
You walk in and think: yes, this is the place to be
Impala is not yet a perfect restaurant, but it has its moments. There were veal sweetbreads sketched with a Bordelaise glaze, suffused with smoke and balanced expertly with pickled onions, that briefly brought on a transcendent bliss. My note for it reads, simply: “F***.”
The bird’s tongue pasta — orzo under an alias — braised with oxtail and black lime was faultless, with its stifado-like tomato richness and current of cinnamon and allspice. We ordered a second portion only halfway through the first. A Dexter beef tartare with a ball of Djerba harissa was stunning, the harissa tasting of sun-dried tomatoes and red peppers and cumin. It reminded me, somehow, of the most perfect Big Mac in the world. And then, unexpectedly, white beans pounded to a paste with wild herbs and gently salty bottarga stopped our conversation. I even managed to get excited by a dandelion salad, a plate of childhood clocks with their hands blown away. The bread had me gurgling idiotically; the glazed sausage rich with cloves and cinnamon had us quizzing the kitchen.
Did duck leave me indifferent? Did the turbot turn me off? Was I left slightly bewildered by the dull featherblade steak? Yes, yes, yes. But it didn’t matter. Despite a masterfully curated wine list — with, thank God, enough bottles in the £20s — I stuck to fizzy water, then went out into the shivering Soho night feeling as merrily drunk as I can remember. This is a one-off: London is only unlucky it doesn’t have another.
Meal for two about £220; impalasoho.com
