Bunyadi: London’s Restaurant Scene Laid Bare
One thing I adore about London is there is always something new to do. New experiences, people to meet and food to eat. Last week our visit to Bunyadi ticket all of these boxes. Bunyadi is Londons first ‘naked restaurant’. Naked not only in the anatomical sense but also food, lighting, cutlery and surroundings.
You enter a totally blacked out pub in a secret South London location. Considering the slightly rough exterior you enter a surprising calming cocktail bar. Ambiently lit, everyone in robes and sipping on sugar crusted martini glasses. A jolly bouncer pushes aside a black curtain into a cosy locker room where you pop all your effects (including all your clothes), slide on your robe and head back into the chatter.
We were able to wander around the dining rooms before dinner, which was actually more like a maze of bamboo booths enclosing wooden tables and seats. Each booth could house ~2-4 people with loosely tied bamboo sticks surrounding it so you couldn’t see your neighbours properly but could detect movement.
The concept behind the restaurant is stripping everything right back to as primal as possible. In the dining area: no lights (save the dim glow of the fire exit), no cooking, no clothes. There is a vegan option for all courses and everything is tasty yet uncomplicated.
Excited to experience this we headed back to the bar to try a cocktail based on one of the four elements (super tasty) before all being seated in our booths. The beautiful thing was we were not allowed phones, so vital in the overly connected tech society of today. Bloody lovely I must say. You didn’t have to remove your robes but it kind of felt right. It was super warm, dimly candle lit and soothing classical music oozed out (which was actually a little bizarre seems as everything was raw and quite ‘adam and eve’ save the music…)
The food we were told was modeled on how food has evolved throughout history from the beginning of time to now.
Our first course was a radish, pickled apple salad served with homemade bread and butter with an almond vegan option. There was an eclectic mix of textures and fresh flavours with crusty bread and creamy butters.
The rest of the savory dishes continued in this manner and saw some really creative and tasty options: salmon and seaweed, courgette flowers stuffed with sundried tomato and bread bean paste; and beef tartare topped with tea infused goji berries.
For dessert we started with an array of fruits: lemon, grapefruit and rhubarb which were served with sugar, salt and chilli flakes to tantalize the tastebuds. The final course was a cashew crème with blackberries. A perfect sweet and creamy finish.
It was pretty cool as our cutlery only consisted of wooden sticks or edible spoons, but to be honest we felt really comfortable eating with our hand (not hands we have learnt!).
I can see how they tried to take basic food into and add in more complex modern flavours as the course progressed. They utilized some obscure food parts like the courgette flowers to jazz things up and make people think about edibility and how we can use more of than our conventional foods. The idea was basic and raw however it was a bit of a bummer they didn’t use in season produce. Also they did serve beef and (farmed) salmon, very popular meats that are really served due to popular demand/familiarity rather than making people think or sourcing sustainably. I feel which with such a unique dining concept both in environment, flavours and textures this could have extended that little bit further into sourcing and sustainably.
Overall the guys are really trying to do something different, help connect people with each other and their food, and have created a new and novel dining experience destined to succeed (there are ~46,000 on the waiting list!) in a city craving the new, different and exciting.
We left satisfied, warm and that little bit more liberated!
Reporters: Aspen ¦ @AbiAspen & Becky
Website: thebunyadi.com
Twitter: @thebunyadi
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