The Good Front Room | Pop-Up Caribbean Dining
If you’re familiar with Caribbean restaurants in London, you’ll probably know that they a) mostly operate as take-away restaurants and/or b) never have any food left.
But The Good Front Room is breaking this tradition.
It’s a pop-up restaurant brought to you by Chef Dom Taylor, who’s just won Channel 4’s Five Star Kitchen: Britain’s Next Great Chef by impressing Le Gavroche’s Michel Roux with his unique cooking style that blends his Caribbean heritage with his South London upbringing.
You’ll find The Good Front Room at The Langham Hotel on Regent’s Street. And as you might expect from an old school, five star hotel, it’s pretty fancy inside. You’ll turn up to a grand foyer with white marble floor and statement columns, before heading to the pop-up in Palm Court, which doubles up as the hotel’s main spot for afternoon tea. Again, it’s all very grand, with enormous jewelled chandeliers and plush pink walls. However, The Good Front Room has aimed to loosen up the setting with a selection of colourful artwork by Nigerian-born artist Caroline Chinakwe, as well as a killer soul playlist put together by Dom himself.
But really, what you’re here for is the food. Dom has drawn on his classical training, restaurant experience and family traditions to modernise Caribbean cooking. He’s created a menu which celebrates ingredients and flavours from the Caribbean like sorrel (hibiscus flower), plantain (savoury banana), rum, and ackee (a fruit related to lychee) in a completely unpretentious way.
You can expect impeccable classic dishes with a modern twist like jerk chicken with plantain jam, a blackened sweetcorn dressing and plantain crisp. For your main course, you can tuck into dark rum-glazed pork belly, pickled raisins and cho cho, or banana leaf baked sea bream with lemongrass, pimento and ginger. And if you have to end with just one thing, make that the coconut soft serve with pineapple compote and plantain chips – a pure explosion of sweet and zingy flavour.
And as for the drinks, they’re just as top-tier as the food. Showstoppers include Chef Dom’s Rum Punch (Wray and Nephew Rum, Passoa, blood orange, lime and spices), as well as his reinvention of the classic Cosmo using sorrel. And if you aren’t in the mood for cocktails, they’ve got a good selection of beer, wine and non-alcoholic cocktails.
As for the name? It refers to the the ‘posh’ room in Dom’s great aunt’s house, which was only meant for very special guests…
…so pretty fitting for The Langham.
NOTE: The Good Front Room residency has now ended.
The Good Front Room | The Langham Hotel, 1c Portland Place, Regent Street, W1B 1JA
Want to discover more chef residencies? Check out the best pop-up restaurants in London