I’ve always thought Haymarket was a bit beige. In the early 1800s, John Nash, on instructions from The Palace to clean the place up a bit, used elegant Portland stone for many of the facades, which today gives everything that just-cleaned look of a Middle Eastern hotel foyer—certainly as compared to the smoky brick and grime, and fun, of Soho only a few hundred feet away. Also, the thoroughfare was a main coach route out of London, avoiding the narrow, twisty backstreets of Soho, Covent Garden, and Mayfair, so it had to be very wide. The resulting effect is light and airy. Just what they were going for, I am sure, but I find its imperial elegance impersonal and stiff. Like it’s made from an aged aunt’s Smythson writing paper.
Halfway up, next to the grand neoclassical portico of the Theatre Royal Haymarket – again all white, Europeans of the time being under the impression that the classical world was glaring white marble, not as it actually was – as vibrantly painted as a Dulux commercial – is a beige building that contains the antidote to everything I’ve just described.
Step inside Farzi for Bottomless Brunch, and it’s like someone suddenly turned your senses back on. Like that film Pleasantville that starts in black and white until people start seeing colour.
Crimson red, deep orange, and jungle green decorations drape from every surface like an explosion in a sari factory.
And the sweet, caramelising smells of spicy, grilled meat and deep, creamy sauces don’t so much float towards the nose as stick two fingers up it and yank the diner inside.
We’re led to our table, past a group of diners dressed in immaculate saris that somehow manage to be riotously colourful and neatly elegant all at once.
Farzi has set up five or six different buffet tables, each one with a selection of dishes representing a “course” or style of cooking. And aside from telling your server when you’re ready for hot, fresh naan, you make your own fortunes.
I fill a bowl with Tamater Dhaniya Shorba, which looks like tomato soup, because it basically is, and then load my plate with Aloo Aloo Tuk Tuk — crispy baby potatoes tossed with tangy pickling spices; Banjara Chicken Tikka — chicken tikka infused with smoky, earthy flavors; Amritsari Machhi Classic — fried fish with ajwain and gram flour batter; and Dhakla — a savory steamed cake of fermented rice and chickpea flour, which is considerably more lovely than it sounds. Don’t skip it. You could also have Malai Paneer Tikka, but that’s not for everyone.
They’re all delightful, but the stand-out winner is… the soup! What? Somehow the magicians in the Farzi kitchen turned there’s-nothing-in-the-fridge tomato soup into an elevated dining experience. My investigations only reveal they use the “chef’s special secret spice blend.” OK, so that stock phrase the chef being playful, but for once there might be some truth in it. It would take more than a “so how do you make this delicious soup?” for me to sell that secret. I go straight back for more, earning the obligatory warning about the five remaining buffet stations from my companion.
Then we hit another station serving bowls of delicious chaat, Goli Gappa (semolina balls — again, considerably more wonderful than they sound), and bao buns. All of which are deep, complex flavours full of the taste equivalent of hairpin bends. Exhilarating.
By now, I have total confidence in the kitchen and heap every one of the four different curries onto my plate, where they sit, creamily, next to a plate of delicious and ethereally light naans. Or you could have rice, but I can make that at home.
There’s Paneer, Pindi Chole (chickpeas), chicken, and mutton, each in its own unique sauce, each one deep, mouth-filling and warming, with a sheen you can see your reflection in. Most excellent.
But the team at Farzi don’t stop at delighting your sense of taste. There’s live music — well, a live singer and backing track (a wise choice, I think; a band would be deafening) knocking out jumping Bollywood hits. The occasional diner leaps up to dance along. There’s a roving conjurer doing some pretty impressive close-up magic work, and to round off the family party atmosphere, you can have your kids’ faces painted. If they want.
All in all, it’s a fantastic, bright, friendly family day out. The kind of thing Northern Europeans sometimes shy away from in case it comes across as naff or vulgar, but the rest of the world embraces with gusto. The trick is to approach it all with genuine warmth, conviction, and colour.
But here’s the thing — all these vibrant extras are built on the solid foundations of the kitchen. If you sat me in the middle of too-wide Haymarket, surrounded by clean Portland stone and creamy, neoclassical facades, and then gave me a plate of Farzi cooking, I would still delight in a joyful dance of the senses. Just from the wonderful food. At the end of the day, it’s the super cooking that carries Farzi home. It supports the rest of the circus; and is worth going back for time and again.
Bottomless Brunch on Sundays 12:00 PM to 5:00 PM
Adults: £37.00; Kids under 10: £18.50 and Kids under 3: Free
Farzi London – 8 Haymarket, London SW1Y 4HT – 020 3981 0090