Three Darlings is Jason Atherton’s fourth opening in four months.
It’s the kind of figures only a Pret could dream of.
But if anyone can pull off launching this many unique, standalone restaurants in such a short time, it’s Jason Atherton. After all, he’s opened a mere 37 restaurants before this, both in London and abroad, including a generous handful with Michelin stars. He made his name as the uber-talented protégé of Gordon Ramsay. And with Three Darlings, he’s created an absolute blinder of a neighbourhood restaurant with all the quality and dedication of a sleek fine diner.
The restaurant sits just off Chelsea’s bustling pedestrianised mews, Pavilion Road, rubbing shoulders with neighbours like Natoora and Ice Cream Union (where the team have sourced plenty of farm-fresh veg and soft serve tips respectively). It’s set a little way off the street, down a set of stairs which leads you to a palm-filled oasis that’s home to the restaurant’s year-round heated terrace.
Inside, the unusual layout carves the restaurant into distinctive areas – you can drop by for a cocktail at the long, beautifully lit bar; catch up with friends at the larger tables on the upper floor; or head down half a flight of stairs to the belly of the restaurant, where you’ll find our favourite seats in the whole place. Here, set into the stairs themselves, are a couple of forward-facing tables for two, where you’ll get to look out over the chefs in the open kitchen sliding aged chops into the Josper oven and raising the racks over the wood-fired grill.
As more of a relaxed, neighbourhood-styled offering than his most recent opening – the glitzy British brasserie Sael in St James’s – the menu at Three Darlings takes on less of a distinct concept and instead offers up a malleable range of globe-trotting dishes that you can order to suit your appetite. That said, it’s very recognisably Sael’s cousin – the bread here is similarly fantastic, from the shreddable, milky Parker House rolls to the garlic & anchovy topped flatbread, all baked overnight by what we can only assume to be a crack team of magical pixies. There’s a lot of space given to comfort food, like the ridiculously good Yukon Gold potatoes, baked and blanketed under a shroud of Lincolnshire poacher cheese and caramelised onion. And there’s the same veneration of aged meat, displayed here in a humidity-controlled ageing cabinet, and served up as tender beef fillet on the bone and succulent pork cutlets in charcutière sauce.
Yukon Gold potato & Lincolnshire Poacher
Other highlights on the menu include the perfectly pitched octopus, lent savoury depth by ‘Nduja oil and butter bean aioli; the exceptional wood-fired scallop Rockefeller with a tang of fermented miso; a beautifully softened roast hispi cabbage topped with smoked mayo, crispy seaweed and black garlic; and the Cornish monkfish tail meunière, whose browned, buttery sauce is given added perkiness by tangelo (a cross between a tangerine and a pomelo). And to finish? You pretty much have to order the milk soft serve topped with hazelnut oil and caviar. Yes, really. It sounds gimmicky at best (and gross at worst), but it’s actually a bizarre stroke of genius, the little saline bursts tempered by meltingly soft cream.
Add to all this a stellar selection of cocktails – even the alcohol-free ones – and a decently-spread wine list, and you’ve got the recipe for a place that locals will keep coming back to (and even non-locals will make the trip for).
Looks like Chelsea just got a new darling.
NOTE: Three Darlings is open daily. You can find out more, and make a booking, on the Three Darlings website.
Three Darlings | 241b Pavilion Road, SW1X 0BP
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