Punk Royale, London W1: ‘Someone shoved mystery slop in my mouth’ – restaurant review | Grace Dent on restaurants
Punk Royale, from Stockholm, has landed in London promising, or rather threatening, that their rowdy, immersive, 20-course fine-dining experience will destroy all puny British perceptions of posh food.It’s a huge claim from these Swedish punks.Indeed, nearly 50 years after the UK invented punk, with the Sex Pistols effing and jeffing on live TV and provoking a national meltdown, here we have some folk with mullets and Roxette CDs slopping “bumps” of caviar on to my hand shortly after beckoning me into a shoddily decorated, fusty-smelling dining room in Mayfair.It’s all a bit student house and needs a good visit from Mr Sheen.That bump, one supposes, is a playful twist on taking cocaine at a grotty afterparty.
However, none of the jokes at Punk Royale is really playful: rather, they’re mostly big, clumsy sledgehammer thwacks.Such as when, for example, they turn off the lights, serve some substandard remoulade, and instruct you to lick it off the plate, while blasting Khia’s My Neck, My Back again and again as your soul dies.I’ve heard more whimsical humour at a Roy Chubby Brown gig.That caviar bump, by the way, came with a shot of tomato water that complemented it nicely.All the drinks afterwards on the non-alcoholic wine flight, however, were thick, soupy, funky and vegetal.
Punk Royale’s aversion to crockery and cutlery is perhaps its most subversive idea,Over 20 breakneck courses, we were served many items on the lids of plastic takeaway boxes (including a cheesy puff with a piped sauce) and in syringes,In one case, we were slung cheap surgical gloves and a tin of something salmony, and told to eat it with our hands,Knives and forks appeared around course 17 to tackle some largely inedible guinea fowl with what Punk Royale called “tasty paste”,I have no idea what was in it.
We sat awaiting the actual show: the singing, the dancing, the debauchery; eventually, someone brought a large stainless-steel serving spoon, tapped me on the shoulder and shoved mystery slop into my mouth.It turned out to be lobster, truffle and kohlrabi.There was foie gras on a smiley blini with a syringe of raisin juice, which was basically Shloer.Nothing tasted of much.I was virtually force-fed and it all arrived at speed – every two minutes, another dish was banged down.
At the end, they served a cube of what could have been Hartley’s jelly.The coffee semifreddo was my favourite part – a moment of refuge – though maybe I was just in shock and this was the equivalent of some sweet tea.This cooking isn’t delicate, or worth the £500 for two with a non-alcoholic drink pairing.Of course, some might say it’s not about the food, it’s about the vibe.But at £500 it really should be about the food, too, not just painting oysters green and serving unseasoned tofu nuggets with damp breadcrumbs on a box lid and thinking you’re Escoffier in Vivienne Westwood tartan pants.
The trendification of UK dining, where diners are bankrupted only to be told that it was never about the cooking, is wearisome.A problem for these punks is that London already has a plethora of immersive dining options; should you wish to eat bad chicken in W1 and be harassed by jobbing actors impersonating Basil Fawlty, Poirot or an Elizabethan wench, we are already well catered to.As for truly shocking immersive theatre, the likes of You Me Bum Bum Train, Punchdrunk, Secret Cinema and a thousand other arty experiences have set a high, surreal, big-budget bar.Casts of hundreds, hidden rooms, multiple storylines, shock celebrity appearances; rather magically, there’s no limit to the vigour with which these interactive experiences set out truly to jar the audience.Meanwhile, Punk Royale, which I’m guessing is aimed at cash-rich, experience-hungry twentysomethings, really only does one rankling thing, and that’s taking diners’ phones and locking them in a box for safekeeping.
Clearly this is to preserve the magic of the journey, although a cynic might say that there’s so little substance to the staging of dinner here that Instagram scrutiny would kill it stone dead in two weeks.We fled into Saturday night Soho, where true debauchery has thrived non-stop since at least 1500.It’s only rock’n’roll, and I don’t like it.Punk Royale 6 Sackville Street, London W1S, 07375 136388.Open dinner Tues-Sat; seating times Tues 7pm; Weds-Sat 5.
45-6pm and 8.45-9pm.£220 per head, including drinks, plus service.The next episode of Grace’s Comfort Eating podcast is out on Tuesday 14 October – listen to it here.
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