Inside The Tent restaurant, where photos of food are banned

Despite my initial, embarrassing reckoning, London’s newest restaurant of note is not found inside the windowed retail block on the end of Little Portland Place — its drab glass doors reminiscent of the opening scene from The Office — but through a less haunting entrance opposite, where you’ll find the door to number 17 constructed from fine timber, slated in a Scandinavian spa sort of way.

Inside, there is a reception area that is dark and brooding, at least when all the curtains are drawn. A booking should mean you’ll be invited through into The Tent (at the end of the universe), a restaurant where stretched canvas extends across ceiling and wall, marginally masking long and mismatched displays of sparkling LED lights and mirrored panelling. 

In the centre of the room is a DJ deck, sometimes cast aside to make way for a live band. On Wednesdays, a Brazilian jazz duo: a pair who would cause Mr Ripley’s feet to tap in near-rhythm; musicians so talented and enrapturing they might even take your mind off the steak, commanding as it is. 

At the far end of the room is the bar. It is slick, and it is well stocked. The waiting staff are beautiful and will wink at you even if — as has become customary for me — you are now so uncool that you inadvertently perform a little geography teacher laugh as you say ‘cheers’. You know what I mean? ‘Oh, cheers, haha’.

The restaurant, once the preserve of members and by invitation only, is now open to the public. Strangely, there isn’t really any pretence to the place, nor any real air of exclusivity. It’s just there, vibing, like a hubristic French bulldog on the Elizabeth line, safe in the assurance that there is air conditioning and a degree of reliability not normally found in London.

You might say the food at The Tent is reliable, too. There is no menu available outside the place, and photos of it — and everything else — are banned. I won’t spoil the party and you shouldn’t either. But I will invite you to picture a juicy and inelegant pork schnitzel; tomatoes sitting on something whipped (no, not your boyfriend); and spiced saganaki, unequivocal in squeak, and which arrives flat and ready as if a fillet of lemon sole. See also: the prawns.

The food, all highly proficient, is the work of John Javier, once of the acclaimed Master in Sydney and now famed in London for his progressive take on Chinese cooking. The Tent’s menu is more closely aligned to the za’atar and zoug imbued world of Middle Eastern cuisine, though Javier is not constrained by a singular narrative or concept. He made his name in London by putting on supper clubs — the kind Harrison Ford attended. Ford was so impressed by his host’s homely display that took it upon himself to do the washing up. He’s a dab hand with Fairy liquid as well as a blaster gun.

On the table next to mine last month? London synthpop ensemble Hot Chip. Previously Owen Wilson popped in and stayed until the early hours. Celebrities like The Tent. Maybe I should dub it the new Chiltern Firehouse.

It is better. I make this claim in part because downstairs is a small, discreet, less nipple-tickling version of Berghain, Berlin’s raucous super club. But let’s not be egregious.

Allow me, though, to quickly describe downstairs — at least as I saw it: during early evening maintenance work (it was then still being built). The basement is a snug but inviting room. It isn’t actually a sultry place, but the world’s greatest DJs are queuing up to play in it and are doing so without any fanfare at all. Were you to grab yourself a spot on the guestlist, you’d be heading down a staircase that costs more than a house, into a place where time pauses and where great white speakers bulge from the walls like great lacquered spaceships. The decks at the back are suspended, free from any vibrations, and moulded into a carved slab of arresting oak. There’s another sleek bar, various lasers ready to flare, and, at the back, the small but bijou kitchen. The owner, who showed me around in happy nonchalance, spent a lot of money creating the place. He claimed the soundproofing is so good you could sleep upstairs while Martin Garrix plays below. 

And so here is an enchanting place where people might listen to jazz, feast on good dishes and drink red wine. Those who are keen might then head downstairs to a Fitzrovian rave — they might label The Tent a ‘clubstaurant’ in turn. Hey, a trend? I don’t know. Just get the schnitzel, please.