Plate-licking worthy desserts at London tashas
• The domestic brand’s first UK restaurant does not scream out its South Africanness
London’s newest SA restaurant is housed alongside a now defunct power station. No irony there, then. This just opened tashas restaurant is located in a recently developed, sprawling and upmarket precinct that includes one of London’s most iconic landmarks, the Battersea Power Station.
Older rock ’n rolling readers may recognise this building from its appearance on the cover of Pink Floyd’s Animals album. The image features an inflatable pig hovering overhead. There were no hovering pigs, sadly, on the day of my visit.
Given its location so very close to the Thames, I had hoped the restaurant might have afforded diners a river view, but no such luck. Instead, my table looked out on the side of the nearby, looming power station — which prompted me to think of yet another memorable Pink Floyd classic album, The Wall. As this particular wall did not need another brick in it, I put down my trowel and turned my attention to the nosh.
Tashas Battersea brings one of SA’s most successful brands to a new country, to a foodie city that has no shortage of cafés and restaurants. It has opened in the wake of Brexit and Covid-19, which have together led to crippling staff shortages in the hospitality sector, adding further challenges to any new kid on the block.
I went there a sceptic but left vowing to return.
CHEERY ATMOSPHERE
My visit to tashas’ first UK outpost was on a grey November morning, and you don’t get much greyer than London in November. I suspect that on the two days of sunshine that London enjoys each year, the terrace around this restaurant will be crammed. On this occasion, it was far too cold for me to linger outside, so I scuttled in. impressions I had expected on the from company what’I s took to be an artist’s prelaunch website that this London outpost would be cavernous and spacious, but it is smaller than, say, the Morningside tashas and the tables are similarly close to one another.
This helps, though, to give the place a cheery, busy atmosphere, and it was good to see a range of diners — from the lady seated alone at the next table with a coffee and a book to the lads near the door, working away on their laptops.
The opening of the restaurant had been delayed a bit, and I was invited there in the week after the launch, which had presumably been reserved for the rich, famous and toilettrained.
It is a spectacularly successful SA brand, also boasting several outposts in the Middle East, but this tashas did not scream out its South Africanness, though it is very similar in look and feel and food to the cosmopolitan, Mediterranean-themed Johannesburg and Pretoria tashas restaurants I know and have often visited.
I was slightly depressed to see the wine list offered just a few SA wines, and these were outnumbered by the other, nonCape offerings. There was no ZA beer, whisky or brandy on offer, but there was some SA gin.
This is a London restaurant, charging in pounds, and the cost of the dishes reflects this — so it is unfair to dwell on the rand equivalent of the pound prices.
However, my rough calculation put the cost of a Prego roll at R470, a Portuguese steak at R893 and a breakfast fry-up at R376. You can see the impact the weak rand has had on the purchasing power of a South African in London.
Other restaurants are available, but you won’t easily find this quality of grub in the UK for much less.
We were served very small glasses of an excellent SA red, which was a bit too warm for me, and I reverted to my SA habit of adding a few ice cubes to the glass. The white wine we were recommended came from Greece and was also far too warm.
I have had good, bad and indifferent meals during my many visits to tashas outlets in SA, but I was delighted to mainly find remarkably good dishes in the Battersea outlet. They have set the bar high and will need to work hard to maintain these high standards.
I was lunching with two friends, and we had a selection of dishes. The prawn skewers from the bar nibbles menu were perfectly seasoned and cooked and came with a cleverly matched dipping sauce. Very, very, very good.
The breakfast sweetcorn scramble was also well contrived and had the bonus of bacon bits. Nothing has ever been ruined by the addition of bacon, with the possible exception of chocolate mousse — and I see no reason that might not work, either.
A healthy, skillfully dressed, shaved cauliflower salad was highly praised by my fellow diners, as was the toasted braaibroodjie. The Cape Malay prawn curry was also a treat. Not a hot curry, but full of flavour. Yum.
To my surprise, my go-to dish at any SA tashas lunch — the Prego roll — was a let-down. The roll itself was a bit too dense and the sauce was neither as oozing nor as hot as I had expected.
I was told the recipe had been tweaked after some London diners had found it too spicy. However, I fear that the altered dish is bland and unappealing. I would suggest that either they revert to a proper Prego or take it off the menu. The chips, though, were perfect.
The first dessert we were served was pumpkin fritters with ice cream. I’m no big fan of pumpkin, but in the interests of scientific research, I gave one fritter a lick and was delighted to discover that the sugar, cinnamon coating was superb. The vanilla ice cream was outstanding, as was our second shared dessert — a hybrid of cake and tiramisu. It is difficult to describe this marvellous concoction, but I had no difficulty in polishing it off. Were I a plate-licker as well as a fritter licker, this was a plate I would have licked and licked again with great enthusiasm. It was outrageously, remarkably good.
One notable thing about the tashas puds I have had in SA is how monstrous the portions are. Not so in London, where they have downsized them. A shame, as I could have gorged myself on much, much more of that cake.
We finished with
THIS IS A LONDON RESTAURANT, CHARGING IN POUNDS, AND THE COST OF THE DISHES REFLECTS THIS
cappuccinos, which I didn’t enjoy. I appreciate that milk is the dominant ingredient, but the coffee was so bullied into submission by the milk that the beverage as a whole lacked the expected coffee taste and kick. As tashas is a restaurant/café, they might look for a better barista.
However, putting aside a few teething troubles, I predict that the Battersea tashas will be a big success. The formula works as well in Blighty as it does in Mzansi, so I expect to see many more tashas restaurants opening in the UK in the future.
That’s just so long as they have the foresight to tell the Prego rolls to: prey, go!