Party on: Decimo
(Picture: Handout)It is a truth self-evident amongst those who know that the best nights out are the impromptu ones, the ones that start about halfway through dinner. Maybe it’s the cosmos; maybe one of the group got a pay rise; maybe it’s just Friday night (and the feeling’s right) — but somewhere between the main course and the bill there comes a silent agreement that no-one is going straight home.
There’s a crackle in the air, a cheeky twinkle in every eye. Any thought of dessert is immediately dropped in favour of espresso martinis. Google maps comes out, bars, clubs and pubs are triangulated, and an excitable debate breaks out over what, where and how to get there asap. It is a magical, inimitable feeling; one which is nigh on impossible to plan for or even engineer, beyond booking a restaurant that might engender it. These are our favourites, selected because they boast good tunes, cocktails, food that’s flavourful but not filling, and are well located for fun. Here’s to the 3am nights; fun is back in fashion.
Mestizo
Of course, every rule must have its exceptions, and whilst the best nights out creep up on you, some start with a bang and a pitcher of frozen strawberry margarita. For these, head to Mestizo, which as well as 50 shades of marg, offers teetering mountains of tortilla chips and generous dollops of guac. They’ll bring the party, as will the staff who joke with diners and dance with each other to the irresistible beat of the mariachi music. True, Mestizo is heavy on the cheesy, fried dishes — the fried chihuahua cheese sticks with tomatillo salsa are superb, as are the potato flautas — but these have their merits when it comes to soaking up the tequila, and the ingredients are meticulously sourced.
103 Hampstead Road, NW1 3EL, @mestizo_camden
F.K.A.B.A.M
Where better to engineer a post-prandial jaunt to a nightclub than a restaurant that began life at the back of a nightclub? F.K.A.B.A.M, the restaurant formerly known as Black Axe Mangal, is the dark, noisy and dramatic brainchild of one of London’s most music-obsessed chefs, Lee Tiernan (pictured above with Quo Vadis’s Jeremy Lee). It started with bouncers doubling up as waiters at the back of a nightclub in Copenhagen, then was reborn on Highbury Corner as Black Axe Mangal, a mash up between a bistro and London’s beloved Turkish mangal grill houses. It was born once again in exactly the same place post-pandemic, and branded as a tribute to itself. There are worse testimonies. The cocktails are strong, and the flavours are stronger: think foie gras and prune doughnut, oxtongue and Ogleshield flatbread, shrimp toast and mango chilli dip. It’s a set menu at £50 per person, and the sharing nature of it fosters an easy, friendly feeling — a pre-requisite for a night on the tiles. It’s the music that does it though: eclectic, loud, dancey tunes which lighten the spirits even more than the shots and the neon-coloured lights on the walls.
156 Canonbury Road, N1 2UP, blackaxemangal.com
The Montpelier
One absolutely watertight way of ensuring the night goes on after dinner is to choose a restaurant which becomes a night out after dinner. The Montpelier is one such place: by day, a decent pub serving small plates of modern British food, and by night a dancefloor lit up by a disco ball and a DJ. The food is simple but thoughtfully created from locally sourced, seasonal produce. Opt for the small plates like the pakora with mint and harissa or cod cheese, brown shrimp and wild garlic butter; they’re better by far, and won’t weigh you down when it comes to the event they call simply Pub Dance, during which the wooden tables are pushed to the sides, the lights are turned low; then, courtesy of some of Peckham’s best DJs, the music starts.
43 Choumert Road, SE15 4PE, themontpelier.net
Caso do Frango
I’ve never knowingly been to Caso do Frango and not been out-out after. That should be reason enough in itself for inclusion, but for the sake of exposition: this Portuguese restaurant in Southwark serves affordable sharing plates within a light-filled 19th century covered warehouse, and boasts a speakeasy bar — The Green Room — behind an unmarked door. The restaurant revolves around chicken, which itself revolves around a spit suspended over a wood-charcoal grill which slowly roasts the bird to bronzed perfection. Chickens come halved, spiked with house made piri-piri sauce and with hot, golden chips and an array of tapas-style sides like their moreish feijoada, rich with sweet potato, velvety white beans and crisp kale. One can have as many or as few tapas as tickles the fancy before hitting The Green Room: a sultry, shabby chic space in which to enjoy their signature negronis whilst plotting the next stage of the starlit night.
32 Southwark Street, SE1 1TU (plus two other locations), casadofrango.co.uk
Piano Works
Like The Montpelier, Piano Works is dinner, drinks and a night out rolled into one venue; perfect for that friendship group that demands maximum reward for minimal effort. Those looking for a club vibe should opt for Oxford Street; those in the mood for more of a concert setting should head to their second place in Farringdon. Both offer a six-piece house band, a happy hour every day, and a concise menu of bistro-style fare that is reliably excellent thanks to being well sourced and simply delivered. Drinkers and dancers of all dietaries are well met here, with vegan lasagnes and burgers, steak, buttermilk chicken, hake and three kinds of potatoes. Piano Works caters for a variety of music tastes, too, because the band takes requests all night long; tipping is advised on busy nights in order to ensure your go-to tune can queue jump.
WC2 and EC1, pianoworks.bar
Decimo
Situated on floor ten of the brutalist block that is The Standard hotel, Decimo is a unreservedly cool restaurant that makes one glad to be alive, and even gladder to be a Londoner. Drinking the view of St Pancreas silhouetted against north London, it’s impossible not to want to be out in it; out-out, even — and that’s before knocking back a marg made with Mexican key lime and mezcal. Food — Manchego quesadillas, pork belly tacos, octopus habareno aguachile and other pickable plates — is created by Peter Sanchez-Inglesias, a Michelin-starred chef of Spanish descent who grew up working in his parents’ Italian restaurant in Bristol. This combination of heritage, experience and extensive research and travelling comes to bear in a menu that deftly merges Mexican and Spanish techniques and ingredients. Being big on veg as well as meat and fish, the menu lends itself to groups, as does the low-lit dining room, with its red velvet chairs, round tables of polished wood and alluringly long marble bar.
10th Floor, 10 Argyle Street, WC1H 8EG, decimo.london
Quo Vadis
The clue’s in the name; even before you’ve walked in the door, Quo Vadis is asking where you’re next off to (the latin translates to: “where are you going?”). The answer is to be decided over a dry martini — one of the best in town, courtesy of the skilled bar team — and a smoked eel sandwich with sweet pink picked onion, courtesy of acclaimed chef Jeremy Lee. Plenty of great nights out have been fuelled by that alone, but one could and ideally should go on, because Lee’s cooking is near peerless. The baked salsify is another classic snack that hits the spot without being heavy; ditto any one of Lee’s seasonally changing, always perfect pies and mixed salads. It’s the vibe, as much as the food that engenders a night out here, however: buzzy, pseudo-sophisticated and sociable, with a steady pulse of fun (and booze) running through it, Quo Vadis will ensure you head out into the night with twice as many friends as you had when you entered.
26-29 Dean Street, W1D 3LL, quovadissoho.co.uk
Maison Francois
Maybe it’s the wine list, lovingly curated to flit between solid French classics and favourites from further afield. Maybe it’s the moody-chic cocktail bar buried downstairs, half filled with unlucky fellows who couldn’t get a seat in the restaurant and half filled with lucky fellows who don’t want to leave. Maybe it’s the staff, who serve with a happy, twinkling eye that says they too might be heading out for a dance later. The food certainly has something to do with it: fun, flavourful French fare that ranges from the familiar — paÌteÌ en crouÌte, onglet and frites, comteÌ gougeÌres — to more offbeat dishes, like duck offal brochette and anchovies, Stracciatella and smoked chilli. Whatever it is, Maison Francois leaves one feeling a little bit louche; a little heady with hedonism, as if the party has only just started and you are the guest of honour. A quick vesper downstairs and you’ll leave convinced that some dance floor somewhere needs you.
34 Duke Street, SW1Y 6DF, maisonfrancois.london
Daffodil Mulligan
Few people befit the phrase “life and soul of the party” so well as chef Richard Corrigan; and few places embody it so well as Daffodil Mulligan, his third London outpost. No sooner had it flung open its doors than staff and regulars were dubbing it Daffy’s; it’s just that kind of place. The food is fire lead, international but rooted in the Emerald Isle. Recommended aperitifs include Black Velvet and Jameson and Ginger; stand out dishes include rock oysters, of course, pig cheek skewers with tamarind and crab ‘chip shop’ curry sauce, and a Tipperary Hereford sirloin with smoked bone marrow, anchovy and stout onion. It’s food that grabs even the most lacklustre by the lapels and drags them to the dancefloor — which isn’t far away, given Daffy’s is within a stumble of Shoreditch. Indeed, one dancefloor can be found downstairs: Gibney’s is Daffy’s basement bar, a dark and hearty place thrumming with live music and even livelier liquors. One could head straight here with some of Corrigan’s inspired bar snacks and have a cracking evening that quickly becomes an entire night.
70-74 City Road, EC1Y 2BJ, daffodilmulligan.com
El Pastor
Mexican fare is tailor made for a night out — so much so that the Venn diagram between this list and that of London’s best Mexican restaurants could easily have been a perfect circle. The tequila helps, of course — and there’s plenty at El Pastor — but it’s also the nature of the food itself: light, fresh, alive with chilli and heady with citrus and herbs, every bite of a taco or tostada feels like a legal high. Conceived by two veterans of a Mexican nightclub, Crispin Somerville and Sam Hart, all the El Pastors serve as a gateway to good times. Borough is the original and the best, but Soho has basement mezcalria and Kings Cross has live music. Drinks are strong in flavour and feeling, food is as you’d expect, but deftly done — but what El Pastor have in an even higher concentration than London’s wealth of Mexican restuarnts is that ever-elusive concept: vibe.
