In town for lunch with a vegan friend he booked us Bubala based on a previous good experience. As far as I can work out it’s on the site of the previous incarnation of Vasco & Piero and still has that ‘I’ve just walked into a terrace front room’ feel as you push through the door. But since V&P’s day they’ve knocked out a wall and opened up the kitchen so you can see the chefs working the grills.

John spurned the meze so we took a smattering of levantine dippers with bread, felafel and an inviting persimmon and wakame concoction. The stars for me were the bread (charred in front of your very eyes), a deliciously smoky baba ganoush and the Persimmon. Wakame, it turns out is very more-ish. Alongside a Macabéo orange wine was delicious.

The room was Soho busy so this isn’t a place for a tryst (at least at lunchtime) but it was cheerful and buzzy. Did we want coffee? No, just the bill. Oh boy, the bill, yup this is Soho. Nigh on 70 quid for some dips and bread (with a good glass of wine). I took it on the chin.

We took coffee down the road at Flat White, which since I was last there in the 2010s appears to have discovered that Billy Idol is C-O-O-L. Sorry kids, I was there and he was C-R-A-P. Thankfully their coffee remains superb.

7/10

To see where else I’ve been click on the google map below.

https://www.google.com/maps/d/u/0/embed?mid=18qCyiPZih_gzhGG8mwfacnNRWD3b0bo&ehbc=2E312F

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