My dear friends,
the entertainment industry’s ongoing obsession with all things supernatural brings to mind Peter Lorre’s immortal words, uttered to my great-uncle Mike Romanoff at the open coffin of the late Bela Lugosi: “Shall we drive a stake through his heart just to make sure?”
If only, mes amis, someone would do the same to the producers of Twilight Saga et al! Those who share my view that teenage hysteria, blood and other bodily fluids make for a distinctly unsavoury cocktail, should try a place where you are guaranteed to be safe from the vampire hype – Garlic & Shots.
If, like me, you’ve unsuspectingly walked past its Frith Street façade for years , you can be forgiven – the interior doesn’t look like a restaurant either.
My first sight was of several emaciated goths sitting at rows of candle-lit, blackened tables. I briefly wondered if I’d stumbled into the kind of canteen the Spanish inquisition used to run for its junior henchmen. The smell from the kitchen could have been of a heretic Garlic farmer burning at the stake – this, as it happened, wasn’t too far from the truth.
G & S’s founders, the brothers Olsson from Stockholm, have come up with a dining concept that is extremely (but, perhaps, not so refreshingly) simple: “As you leave the restaurant, you should fell like you’ve been Garlic Marinated.”
‘Fell’ seems to be the key word here. The levels of seasoning of the asparagus starters, burger mains and ice cream desserts are ferocious, indeed.
Lovers on a romantic first date, beware: Should you progress past the first course, you and your paramour are likely to ooze beurre d’ail from every pore for the rest of the night. Still, you’ll have the consolation that the anti-bacterial properties of your Garlic Marinated secretions will protect against most known STDs.
After dinner, it’s time to retreat to the downstairs bar for a digestif. Naturally, the cocktail list – actually a collection of just over 100 different shots – heavily relies on G & S’s favourite ingredient. The Vitlökshonung, a garlic-honey brandy, instils its aroma by sheer power of suggestion – there (really) is no need to taste it.
Drinks and ambience go hand in hand. If, in the course of my research, I have found myself many times in the bowels of Soho, this surely must be its appendix. The harmonies produced by popular chamber orchestras like Slayer and Megadeth are said to be good for the digestion and, if the charming bar maid is to be believed, actually break down the molecular structure of garlic’s Allyl Methyl Sulfide through acoustic pressure alone.
A tiny side bar contains a life-size wrapped mummy, an unnecessary prop. The dark alcove is oppressively constricted – one more shot and you’ll feel like the hero in Poe’s ‘Premature Burial’.
Whether a panic attack or the rapidly falling oxygen levels force you to surface, a small garden area at the rear offers the health-conscious patron a little breathing space to have a calming fag. You’ll notice a warm feeling of kinship with your fellow punters, no doubt due to the crammed space, familiar perfume and the throroughly good time everybody is having.
I, for one, will definitely be back for more.
Your
Max Obolensky
Garlic & Shots 14 Frith Street London W1D 4RD Tel: 020 7734 9505 http://www.garlicandshots.comNearest Underground: Leicester Square
*
