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Tuesday 3 July 2018

Temper Soho - Wondrous Meat, Fearless Seasoning and Great 90s Soundtrack


Name: Temper Soho

Where: 25 Broadwick Street, London W1F 0DF, http://temperrestaurant.com/

Cost: A meal at Temper will cost on average £45 per person not including drinks or service. Small-eats (all tacos) are priced between £5 and £11.50, larger-eats (meat on flatbread) cost from £8.50 to £11, with sides at £3.50 to £7 and desserts from £6 to £12.

About: Temper Restaurant is Chef Neil Rankin's latest venture with three London branches in Soho, City and Covent Garden, which opened in May 2018.


I recently visited Temper Soho on Broadwick Street. The restaurant is a raucous affair in the basement of what seems a wine shop. As you walk down the stairs, the loud 90s music, the BBQ smoke, mezcal fumes, and charred meat odours welcome you with a bang.


Temper Soho is cavernous, with booths and tables filling every corner, but if you want a piece of the real action, grab a counter seat around the open kitchen where tacos are hand-pressed, flatbreads are blistered and chefs busily go about finishing off their dishes.


The focus point of the kitchen though is the central charcoal grill where whole carcasses of lamb and goat are roasted over glowing coals.


There is also a cedar wood oven, as well as charcoal and oak grilling areas depending on the dish being cooked.


The menu at Temper Soho is centred on BBQ with South American influences - the meat dishes are designed from every bit of the animal, so everything is used (Temper buys the entire animal) including their fat – think beef fat potatoes, grilled corn in lamb fat, and chilli and bone marrow just three of the dishes which give you a flavour of the food on offer.


Temper City, opened in July 2017, focuses on Indian cooking, with a tandoor oven, offerings of curry and freshly made paratha whereas Broadwick Street has a more Mexican theme with corn tortillas, flatbreads and mezcal-based drinks. Temper Covent Garden has an Italian angle, and serves wood fired pizzas, ragu, charcuterie, wine and vermouth.


What We Ate: From the small-eats menu, we chose the taco of aged cheeseburger (£8.50) - this was excellent, with intense flavours of cheese and corn, and a tender beef patty.


We also enjoyed the crab, dill, pickled onion and pork skin (£9) served on tacos, this was fresh and well seasoned although I could not detect the pork skin.


From the meat course menu, we chose the smoked beef (£10 per 100g) - this is cold smoked for 8 hours over charcoal or wood. Deliciously tender, with yellow fat and a wonderfully smoky flavour, this was simplicity itself and magnificent.


Smoked goat (£11 per 100g) was slightly less smoky than the beef, but surprisingly for such a wiry beast was just as tender.


The weakest link for me was the lamb belly masala (£8.50), with an anemic sauce and shredded meat lacking interest or texture.

Chipotle miso chicken half (£25), was smoked and grilled with paprika, then served with a herb salad of fresh mint, coriander, green chilli, radicchio and burnt lemons. The meat was succulent and tender, and had a great depth of flavour and heat from the miso and chipotle, a great combination of ingredients.


We enjoyed the ‘burnt-end’ Thai larb (£5) with lamb knuckle meat, ground toasted rice, and plenty of heat from the diced fresh red chillies. The larb was fresh, zingy and incredibly flavoursome.


The grilled corn with lamb fat béarnaise and mint (£4) was equally delicious, leavened by the surprising but very effective addition of popcorn. So novel and wonderful.


For dessert, we had the deep dish brigadeiro cookie with fior di latte ice cream (£6). With a sweet and buttery cookie and a neutral ice cream, this was a nice pudding but bore little resemblance to the Brazilian brigadeiro I grew up eating in São Paulo.


Sadly the signature butterscotch kouign-amann with dulce de leche ice cream (£6) was sold out, so instead we opted for the gin and tonic sorbet with honeycomb, grapefruit and a shot of Caperitif (£7). An adult dessert with some astringently bitter flavours, this was a refreshing and light dessert that ended our meal on a high note.


What We Drank: Cocktails are all priced at £10, with wines mostly from the New World, starting at £31 for a Pinot Noir Valle del Maule 2015, with most of the wines priced upwards of £50.  

To kick off, we had a brace of cocktails - Mr Faulty is a blend of rum, basil, rice wine vinegar and lime. Essentially a basil daiquiri, this was refreshing and full of citrus freshness.


Neil's Negroni is a modification of the classic blend of gin, vermouth and Campari, substituting gin with mezcal. The Negroni had a smoky note from the agave, which in this version is burned before being fermented to alcohol.  

With our meal, we shared a bottle of Quinta de Falorca, from Dao, Portugal 2011 (£42). A blend of Touriga Nacional, Rufete, Jaen, Alfrocheiro and Tinta Roriz, this was a straightforward wine, with plenty of red berry fruit flavours and some structure, with soft tannins.


Likes: Bold flavours, excellent meats and fearless seasoning. Catchy 90s soundtrack (Prince, Blondie), lots of seating around the central barbecue pit, reasonable prices, what's not to like?!

Dislikes: None

Verdict: If you like good quality meat, fearless seasoning and a great atmosphere, you will love Temper Soho. Grab a seat at the counter to watch the action (though not for the squeamish). I thoroughly enjoyed our meal at Temper Soho and highly recommend it.

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