Greyhound Café review: Katie Glass gets lost in the fusion confusion

“The cod swam in a clear fish sauce flanked by two carrots; it looked as though two tiny snowmen had died”
Not the real deal: the Greyhound Café
Katie Glass8 February 2018

Ambience: 2.5/5

Food: 2/5

I’d barely been back from Thailand a week and three people had recommended the Greyhound Café. None of them had actually eaten there. They thought ‘it looked cool’. I should have remembered then that choosing a restaurant based on its looks is as stupid as choosing your life partner that way. But still we do.

I considered taking a friend but decided on a date. Why waste my tan lines? We met on an app. He looked like a catalogue model with better taste in clothes. We had exchanged barely six messages but I suggested dinner anyway because dating is always Russian roulette. Besides, he seemed a better prospect than the boys in Thailand, where Tinder is dominated by topless 24-year-olds posing with tigers on drugs.

Greyhound began as a fashion house; now it claims to be a ‘lifestyle phenomenon’. The first Greyhound Café opened in Bangkok’s Sukhumvit district, a backpacker-hipster hotspot of trendy hostels, co-working spaces and craft beer joints. Fitzrovia, the location for London’s Greyhound, emits the same upmarket uni vibe. UCL and London College of Fashion students buzz around streets of trendy juice bars and restaurants with ampersands in their names. On a wall near the Greyhound someone has sprayed graffiti of Jeremy Corbyn dressed as a monk.

The cod swam in a clear fish sauce flanked by two carrots; it looked as though two tiny snowmen had died

Outside Greyhound is all plush seating, where in Thailand crowds would be sprawling in the sun. But this is London, in January, so it is freezing. Inside feels equally chilly: the industrial-canteen style, cool in Bangkok if you’re padding around in flip-flops, here seems rather brutal. Some beautiful touches — staff in fisherman’s pants, burnt orange Buddhist garlands and metal origami hanging from the ceiling — are ruined by cheap plastic candles on tables and Claire’s Accessories-style plates adorned with the naff slogan: ‘Friends flirt fun food fashion’.

The menu is just as slipshod. Like the decor, it is fusion; always worrying. There’s a confusion of ravioli and bruschetta alongside tom yum, pad Thai and more delicate dishes such as seared tuna and cod poached in lime. It took 20 minutes to order and 20 more for our cocktails to arrive, which were tasteless and thick. My Samyan Joke — Mekhong, ‘abricot’, egg white, etc — was like cornflower in aftershave. My date’s Phra Kanong People (tequila, chilli, coriander) could have been pre-mixed Margarita sprinkled with mixed herbs. We ordered wine. Half an hour later, it arrived.

The food came in the wrong order, and cold. The beef was overcooked, the mussels were chewy. Everything was smothered with garlic and chilli, all tasting the same. The cod swam in a clear fish sauce flanked by two carrots; it looked as though two tiny snowmen had died. My date teased me into ordering fried Thai pupae on mixed greens. It tasted surprisingly good, like the nutty bottom of a packet of crisps. And at least salad is meant to be cold. The only thing I would eat again was the ‘weeping wolf’ lamb — fat, red cubes on a cucumber lattice, flecked with deep-fried basil.

Disappointing: food arrived cold

Maybe in the Noughties, when we were still perving over Leonardo DiCaprio in The Beach, this would have passed for Thai food. It was a novelty then, but now even Tesco does a Thai range. Vietnamese is the new Thai. Korean is the new Vietnamese. Those of us who’ve been to Thailand know the real cuisine is street food, eaten with your fingers beside the heat of the grill. Searing, fresh, fast, cheap — so good that last year a street stall won a Michelin star. I’d put the money you’d waste at Greyhound Café towards the flight.

At least the date was a joy. He was hilarious, interesting and clever. He wrote all my best lines. We snogged and it smacked of chilli and garlic. I texted him in the morning, ‘8 /10 would eat again’. ‘Exactly twice as good as the restaurant,’ he replied.

Greyhound Cafe

1 Samyan Joke £9

1 Phra Kanong People £9.50

1 Weeping wolf lamb £7.80

1 Hoy ob mow din mussels £8

1 Tataki tuna laab £8.20

1 Bugs in my salad £9.50

1 Poached cod £16

1 Beef yum £13.50

1 Bottle of Chardonnay £30

Total £111.50

37 Berners Street, W1, (020 3026 3798; greyhoundcafe.uk)

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