Kricket is one of those restaurants that everyone is convinced I’d love. “You mean you haven’t been yet?” is the usual refrain when it pops up in conversation with food-loving friends.
Fair enough: it’s a true London dining success story, after all, beginning life as a 20-seater in Pop Brixton in 2015. The simple concept was to pair British ingredients with the authentic flavours, aromas and spices of India; its subsequent popularity allowed twentysomething chef-founder Will Bowlby and front-of-house Rik Campbell to open a more upscale branch off Piccadilly Circus.
Naturally this too has been an instant hit, with the usual no-bookings rule (around the desirable counter area, anyway) which requires – as with nearby destinations The Palomar or Barrafina – a bit of organisation to get a spot.
So my partner and I by after a morning’s shopping for bed linen and curtains at John Lewis (I know, I know). There has to be a reward for prolonged soft-furnishing hardships, after all.
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At just before 1pm on a Saturday lunchtime we nearly have the place, in its bare-brick and tiled splendour, to ourselves. We can opt to sit by the window, or further down the stylish counter and watch the chefs in the open kitchen chopping, pans sizzling.
An instant curveball is that the young guy behind the counter doesn’t know what the prices correlate to on the wine list, and whether a carafe is half a bottle or half a litre. It’s no biggie, but such hesitancy comes as a surprise. (After that mishap, service is really smiley and slick all the way through).
The menu is short, just three or four options in each of the sections marked veg, fish, meat and pudding. We are advised to order four to six dishes between two. First caveat: I would, in future, choose just four, as it turns out we have at least one plate too many. And as they’re served when ready, on our visit the order is slightly back-to-front.
Second caveat: the vegetarian dishes are ridiculously filling. A plate of smoked sweet potato, sesame raita, gunpowder and crispy onions (£6.50) sounds like a delicate creation, but in reality it’s a sturdy affair that would make a reasonable lunch alone, its flame-blackened skin, crunchy onions and creamy yoghurt adding texture to the hearty vegetable.
It’s a similar story with the butternut squash, the superior dish of our two meat-free choices, the creamy bright orange makhani sauce, smooth with tomatoes and spices, being speckled with fresh paneer, hazelnut crumble and puffed wild rice (£8.50). It’s great ladled up with the tasty masala bread. But we’re disappointed that these two come last, and – how unlike us – we in fact struggle to finish them.
Rewind twenty minutes and first up is Keralan fried chicken with pickled mooli (above, £8.50). It’s a rugged bowl over-generously filled – and, while the poultry is tender, the batter crunchy and the pale curry leaf mayonnaise lemon-scented, we’re surprised at its heft. Not to mention the fact it’s served before the daintier plates.
The top dishes by a mile come somewhere in the middle of all this. Two fat fingers of duck breast (£13), pleasingly carmine, skin browned, glisten on a plate with a whorl of blood orange and rhubarb, a dollop of spicy yellow thecha for contrast. The combination is mesmerizing.
Best of all, though? An outstanding tandoori huss (above, £10), attractively golden, blistered and blackened at the edges, accompanied by a gorgeous pea-green heap of coconut and coriander chutney. Its opaque melt-in-the-mouth butteriness is astonishing, immediately becoming my favourite fish dish of the year – and the moment when we finally ‘get’ what the restaurant, with its attendant hype, is all about.
Main image: Hugh Johnson
