Old world charm has got me: The Patio Restaurant


Eastern European food is not something that is easily available in stores. Neither are there Eastern European restaurant chains and takeaways. In short, Eastern European cuisine has not caught up in our imagination.

Polish, one of the more famous Eastern European cuisine, has a distinct niche in the world, much like Italian art films of the 50s and 60s.

It was easy to find this obscure restaurant, thanks to the internet. I would have never found it, if it was not listed on food websites and reviewed by online journals. Although we are in the habit of blaming the internet for all the bad things it has done to our brain, without it I would have missed out on trying the food from this little gem of a restaurant. If not for the internet, I would have missed out on trying out so many other little holes in the wall too over the last few years.

The Patio Restaurant, a very unassuming name, and quite hard to find on Google, has an old world charm that sets it apart from the high-flying nature of life in London. London is of course dotted with such small restaurants preserving the atmosphere of a bygone time. But finding each one of them is like hunting for treasure in a heap of hot lava. The internet helps to sieve through, but this one, without references seems hard to find.

The décor is retro because the tables and chairs look like they have been sitting there for more than five or six decades, but the walls tell a different story, and often a progressive one, as one of them has several small pieces of modern art. The other walls carry on with the general theme, and one section is filled with framed newspaper articles and images of celebrities.

There was one Polish lady running the whole show in the afternoon. It wasn’t very busy. In fact, there were only a couple of clients on the whole floor. Her demeanour was almost reminiscent of Bianca Castafiore of the Tintin comics.

Swayed by the old-world charm, away from the unpainted concrete offices and sterile labs, food was almost an excuse to spend as much time there as possible. But the food was great, and though I am no connoisseur of Polish food, having once visited a Polish restaurant in New York, I was quite taken by its simplicity.

Given a choice, I would still prefer New York’s Little Poland (http://www.yelp.co.uk/biz/little-poland-new-york) over Patio Restaurant, but for the time being, this is the best Polish I have had so far in London.

Here are some images of food from Patio Restaurant:

Trout

Leg of Lamb


Shepherd’s Bush Market (where Patio is located) is a bit off from central London, but if you have an Oyster card or a Travelcard, or if you are a motivated foodie, you must give this place a go!

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