From Sucre to Zahter, here are the best things the CODE team ate this week

Dai Chi

The lovely people from Angelina in Dalston have opened a restaurant in Soho called Dai Chi that serves a kushikatsu omakase tasting menu. The beautifully designed space on D’Arblay Street focuses on Osaka’s staple cuisine and serves kushiage fried skewers based on ingredients available on the day. The menu is incredibly priced at £38 per person for the amount of food and quality of cooking. Go (and don’t forget to use your CODE app too).
Adam Hyman, founder
CODE was a guest of Dai Chi
Dai Chi is available on the CODE app

Legare

Legare is lovely as I had imagined. A warmly lit space with clean lines, softened with beautiful sprays of flowers – a new armful of which owner Jay Patel brought in during lunch. With head chef Matt Beardmore on the pans, out of the open kitchen came a drop dead delicious plate of grilled ox tongue with winter tomatoes. To follow, a generous bowl of bright, buttery duck agnolotti to face off the Baltic January wind. For good measure, a perfect cannolo to share sent us on our way.
Chloe Hamilton, content manager
CODE was a guest of Legare

Sucre

I’ve never been to Buenos Aires before, but if Sucre is any reflection of the food and restaurant scene in the city, I must visit soon. Open fire sharing dishes is their thing, and they do it well. Favourites included the 800g bone-in ribeye, shrimp tortilla and the very indulgent dulce de leche fondant that I can’t stop thinking about. This, of course, has to be washed down with the best Argentinian wine.
Henry Southan, editorial intern
CODE was a guest of Sucre
Sucre is available on the CODE app

Tendril

Tucked away in the Sun & 13 Cantons on Great Pulteney Street, Tendril from chef Rishim Sachdeva is a mostly vegetarian concept offering a seasonal ‘discovery menu’ (a la carte is available too). The seven courses feature some of Rishim’s signature classics including a tostada with muhamarra, winter squash and chard kimchi, which was fantastic, and the chipotle grilled mushrooms with BBQ kale, salted peanut, carrot, and confit chilli (pictured). Well worth a visit while you still can.
Tom Pilgrim, accounts manager
CODE was a guest of Tendril

Baileys Fish and Chips

Baileys on the Dawes Road in Fulham is a real local gem that I’m delighted to have on my doorstep. The scampi are plump and crispy, and a regular chips is plenty for two to share. Whilst I waited a regular popped in and chatted away with the owner about this and that. It reminded me of the place such establishments hold in the community, and how excellent hospitality, in whatever setting, is rewarded with repeat business.
Will Lake, COO

Zahter

After reading Jay Rayner’s report of ‘the best baklava I have ever eaten’ I was more than excited to get to the recently opened Zahter. The proof was quite literally in the pudding as, unsurprisingly, the baklava was outrageously good. The real surprise was that we still had room after having feasted on the rest of the menu; from a whole stuffed globe artichoke to a whole (but magically de-boned) sea bass, we had it all. Coming in close second to the baklava were the pide: pillowy and piping hot from the wood and charcoal oven.
Molly Wade, memberships manager
CODE was a guest of Zahter

FŸR at White City House

FŸR is the new pop-up by this year’s Soho Chance winner, Talia Prince, and I was really grateful to join the launch night this week. Inspired by the South African braai, the menu has a more refined, elegant take on open-fire cooking. My favourite dishes of the evening were the stone bass tartare and the ex-dairy beef fillet with a fabulously crunchy potato galette.
Henry Southan, editorial intern
CODE was a guest of FŸR at White City House

Kastner & Ovens

It’s the simplest concept – a salad bar with a variety of high-quality salads at a reasonable price – and yet options seem to be few and far between, most either cheap and unappetising, or wildly expensive. The best, by quite some margin in my opinion, is Kastner & Ovens (a generous ‘small’ salad box with three salads is a very reasonable £5.90). The original site in Covent Garden has been around for 20 odd years. With so many grab & go lunch spots sadly closing over the past 18 months, as work from home guidance has decimated trading, that is no mean feat.
Will Lake, COO

Read more reviews from the CODE team here