The high-end Chinese chain Tattu, with homes in Birmingham, Leeds and Manchester, has arrived close to Tottenham Court Road station in London just as the scaffolding, cranes and general upheaval that has tormented the area for more than a decade begins to subside. The making of the new Elizabeth line has hampered Denmark Street, AKA Tin Pan Alley, and its environs for a very long time. Such a long time, in fact, that many of the 400,000 people a day who are expected to pass by the all-new, space-age Outernet building will have no memory of this neighbourhood’s former reassuringly shabby loveliness. Outernet is a £1bn music venue, office space, luxury hotel and lifestyle mothership that has gobbled up an entire block between New Oxford Street and Charing Cross Road, and its entrance is marked by badly dressed door persons in ill-fitting, steampunk-style frock coats.
I could devote this whole column to the plethora of jaw-dropping, state-of-the art solutions Outernet will be providing for central London – it has the world’s largest high-resolution wraparound screens, everyone! – but I came here for the food and, by golly, Tattu has got it, albeit in very small portions of wagyu fillet carpaccio at £34.90 a throw. Or, say, four pretty chicken truffle shumai dim sum at £12.90, or wok-fired “angry bird” chicken (sweet-and-sour chicken with a few floating chillies to you and me) at £24.90 and only just enough to feed one.
