They've done the double: it's expensive and awful

WHEN a press release comes through selling a restaurant on the strength of its association with "the Mafia's banker", expectations of the cooking do not naturally balloon.

- David Ellis

In 2017, this was the case with 108 Garage on Golborne Road. But whaddya know? It was a critical smash. Punters though, possibly mob-weary, swerved it, and it didn't last long. What came next didn't either. "Difficult site," I said to a friend.

But then, during the Notting Hill Revolution - not a real one, but last year's cascade of new restaurants - the Counter appeared, from chef Kemal Demirasal. Upscale Turkish, but unusual. Also a bit Greek, Mediterranean, somewhat Levant-leaning. Any food boundaries in that part of the world seem to me blurred, the map perhaps smudged in olive oil. Whatever. Here was a room of romantic gloom where one might eat swampish olives, white-chocolate baba ganoush, lamb liver wrapped into a skewer. God, was it good. Everyone said so. And on that difficult site, too. Tell you where shouldn't be a difficult site, though: Kingly Street. Bar Crispin is always packed, Ain't Nothin' But The Blues has for 31 years filled the street with the drumbeat of pint glasses, and Dishoom, a chain hardly novel at 14, continues to draw nightly queues. Imagine if somewhere new opened with room to scoop up the overspill?