Cafe Kitty, Soho

For someone who spends an unhealthy amount of time thinking about and reading about restaurants, I consider it a personal failing that I didn't connect Cafe Kitty (Soho) with Kitty Fisher's (Mayfair) until it came up in conversation about halfway through dinner. In my defence, the two venues do not share an immediately obvious aesthetic - the Mayfair joint is low-key, bohemian, candlelit and spread over two floors of a Georgian townhouse with many dark and intriguing nooks and crannies. Cafe Kitty looks and feels like what it is - a smart, modern bistro that doubles up as a pre- and post- theatre drinking spot for the Underbelly Boulevard crowd, and with a tiny handful of notable exceptions (RIP The Other Naughty Piglet), theatre bars are not usually destination eating venues.

But even as the setting is distinctly un-Mayfair, the menu at Cafe Kitty shares one very important feature with its sister restaurant - you want to order and eat everything on it. And so, more or less, we did, starting with some extremely well put-together cocktails - above is a 'Picante', involving tequila, lime, agave and chilli. "Don't eat the chilli", I was told, a faintly patronising bit of advice I thought until they explained that a recent customer with more tequila in him than sense had decided to dispatch the whole garnish in one gulp. And from what I can gather (perhaps mercifully, they didn't go into too much detail), it didn't end well.

Most of the savoury courses at Cafe Kitty come under the heading 'To be shared...' although some are easier shared than others. They'd helpfully supplied a knife with the Welsh rarebit but I still think this would have worked better as a starter for one. How do you divide a 'Very Welsh' rarebit between 6 people? Caerphilly.

Devilled eggs is one of those strange things that for some reason the whole of North America thinks us Brits eat before every meal but in fact you rarely see on a menu over here. Which is a shame because done well, like these, they're very nice indeed - a silky smooth mayonnaise spiked with just enough chilli and paprika to provide a bit of a kick.

Cafe Kitty have a bit of a habit of covering dishes in giant clouds of shaved parmesan, and though I have nothing against the practice, it does mean the resulting photos are a little on the ambiguous side. So you'll have to take my word for it that this is a Caesar salad (very good, with lots of lovely crunchy bits and oily anchovies providing a good hit of umami)...

...and under here somewhere is a steak tartare, equally fun to eat thanks to good quality beef and the fantastic, not-seen-nearly-enough-in-my-opinion shoestring fries.

It seems churlish to complain that the Caramelised Roscoff Onion Tarte Tatin would have been nicer with some good buttery puff pastry but vegans don't often get much to call their own on a London restaurant menu even in 2024 and on its own terms I suppose it succeeded.

Buffalo chicken bites with blue cheese dressing felt a bit like an interloper from a different and (let's face it) slightly less ambitious menu but was nonetheless a bit of a crowd pleaser, with a good sharp buffalo sauce and salty, creamy cheese element. The nuggets could have probably done with being a bit crisper - the sauce had started to send them a bit soggy by the time they got to us - but this was a minor quibble.

Much more impressive was this club sandwich. Many, many horrible crimes have been committed in the name of a club sandwich on room service menus all over the globe, but the Cafe Kitty version served as a timely reminder that actually, the combination of grilled chicken, mayonnaise and crisp, wonderfully salty streaky bacon, done properly, is hard to beat. And it would have been fantastic even without the addition of more dangerously addictive shoestring fries on top.

But Cafe Kitty's skill with potato isn't limited to shoestring fries. This is a little bowl of "crispy potatoes" - essentially their version of the Quality Chop House confit spuds that have been doing the rounds in London restaurants over recent years, and just like the OG they were deliriously lovely. Crisp on the outside, smooth and soft within and flecked with salt and thyme they deserve to be an absolute must-order. We must-ordered a second portion.

The savoury courses reached their conclusion with a large coal-roasted bass, perfectly cooked to achieve a nice crisp salty skin and with firm, fresh flesh inside. Everyone on the table loved this - including those who wouldn't ordinarily order a whole roast fish as their main - and despite the very reasonable price tag of £35, all 6 of us had a good amount each.

The value of Cafe Kitty, in fact, is something that deserves a special mention. With enough to drink - cocktails all round as well as a few by-the-glass wines - two desserts to share (the boozy Knickerbocker Glory was the star, although there was nothing wrong with strawberries and cream either) and a side salad, the total including service came to £60pp, the kind of sum you could easily arrive at in a regional chain pub these days never mind somewhere in the centre of Soho offering food as accomplished as this. The narrative on eating out in London has for so long been about soaring costs and lowered standards that when somewhere like this comes along, serving better than decent food at reasonable prices, it really deserves some attention.

But I don't think Cafe Kitty will be short of such attention. Already a buzzy spot barely 6 months after it opened, it's only going to get more popular as word spreads about the attractive, airy space serving supremely comforting comfort foods above the sleazy Soho streets. Gather your friends, order as much of the menu as you can, and put your evening in their hands. You will enjoy it, I promise. They're good at this.

8/10