Fire and flame: Caia
(Picture: Matt Writtle)That Caia makes such a big deal of its soundsystem feels almost like an act of light provocation. Loud music in restaurants is hardly an uncontroversial issue. And so you would wager that this place — a new Notting Hill wine bar from the same team as nearby Fiend — would prefer not to put diners in mind of the cranked stereo at a Joe & The Juice, or a Mayfair “clubstaurant” where there is a high chance of being menaced by a roving saxophonist midway through your black cod.
However, this perceived emphasis on aural pleasure turns out to be a red herring. Yes, the basement here, a snug, crate-digger’s nirvana of racked vinyl, soft lighting and funk tunes, is undoubtedly a focus. But it is chef Jessica Donovan’s live fire cooking that truly seals this as, for my money, one of the best openings of the year — though I’m not sure you would think much of it to look in from the street. Set on Goldborne Road, Caia (named after the Roman goddess of fire) sits in a subtly signposted space beside an old-school Palestinian restaurant and beneath Trellick Tower. Scurrying in on a drizzly weeknight, its specialness hit me by degrees — the earth-toned, narrow bar space, a glimpse at the bottle-lined, 10-cover private dining room out the back — before the thrilling descent into that clubby, rock svengali downstairs with its warm, house-inflected soundtrack.
