Few things in life gesture towards mischief and revelry like a photo booth. To plant one in a hospitality business is to deliberately put a certain generation in mind of sweaty, post-rave faces in Berlin Photoautomats, squished bodies wielding props at raucous weddings and a varied rogues’ gallery of exposed body parts. But stumble towards the curtain of the one in Empire Empire — a new, contemporary Indian restaurant in Notting Hill — and the only thing you’ll find on the other side will be dishes, a dumbwaiter, and an artfully hidden back-of-house area.
Now, this might seem like a minor detail; a slight design miscalculation born from the limitations of a small, awkwardly configured 40-cover space. But I mention it because its nagging weirdness encapsulated some of the nettlesome issues at the heart of this venture from Gunpowder founder Harneet Baweja.
