Sing for your supper at new drag dinner club
LIP SYNC battles sound better up close, preferably when you’re so close you can see the glitter in the singer’s (fake) eyelashes. Drag is getting intimate: a new cabaret and supper club in Dalston is inviting Londoners to dine with the capital’s most glittering kings and queens.
Set up by the organisers of Sink the Pink and Mighty Hoopla festival, Dine & Drag is already one of the most starry nights in town. Actress Rose McGowan and singers Jermain Jackman and Professor Green have already been down to see the show.
It happens every Friday in E8 at Wringer and Mangle in London
Fields (also known for its excellent Sunday roasts).
Singer Rudi Douglas, most famous for his residency just down the road at The Glory’s Sunday night Big Gay Songbook, is on the keys, and on the mic each week he’ll be joined by a drag diva guest host to serenade you over your supper. Expect Whitney classics and Beyoncé hits over your slowcooked chicken and bottomless drinks.
The music may be cheesy but this is high-end dining: dishes include pan-roasted scallops with cauliflower purée, seared salmon with soy meringue, and slow-cooked lamb rump with sweet potato purée, braised lentils and a parsley sauce.
Vegans can choose from avocado panacotta, roasted beetroot risotto or a seasonal plate of pumpkin and fig with sautéed porcini and nut dressing — a feast for the ears and stomachs, then, but don’t expect to just sit back and be entertained.
The approach is inclusive: expect fierce lip sync queens getting up close and personal and a resident drag DJ until the early hours (the after-party is included in your £45 ticket). The dress code is Slay If You Dare, so don on your most fabulous attire and the boldest make-up you can find.
There are still tickets left for tonight and thanks to popular demand, the run has now been extended into December so there’ll be two special seatings a night in the run-up to Christmas — an even better excuse to belt out Mariah. As RuPaul says, we’re all born naked, and the rest is drag.