Off to Notting Hill to the secret, exclusive dining room, pub and hidden speakeasy that is the Fat Badger. When it opened earlier this year, the place was invite-only, but has since relaxed its door policy to allow anyone who fancies the first-floor bar for ale, martinis and toasties or the set menu by a former River Cafe chef on the top floor. Nothing is more likely to rankle decent, upstanding Guardian readers than the notion that the Fat Badger was once invite-only, and in Notting Hill, land of the frittered trust fund, too! “Eat the rich!” said Jean-Jacques Rousseau, apparently. Well, he’d have to find them first, because they don’t make that easy here. This badger is tucked away above the much-lauded Canteen on Portobello Road, and access is down a side street via what seems more like the goods entrance.
Head up two sets of stairs, and the Fat Badger’s pub and dining room are elegant, olde-worlde, wood-panelled and candle-lit. It’s all completely charming, of course, but crucially – and this is by no means a dig – and, despite the acres of hype because Margot Robbie and Jamie Dornan have been spotted here, it’s also nothing remotely groundbreaking. In recent years, a new breed of London pubs such as the Hero in Maida Vale, the Devonshire in Piccadilly, the Knave of Clubs in Shoreditch and now the Fat Badger have been selling gen Y the concept of “going to the pub” as if it were a deliciously edgy, new thing. People mill around, drink booze and talk! In real life! When the place opened, there was even talk that, gasp, they were selling single cigarettes behind the bar, to take to the smoking area. All the glorious grot that was once so commonplace is being rebranded as the epitome of decadence. That said, by the time I got round to visiting last week, those single ciggies were no longer available, no doubt because some miserable snitch had said it might be illegal.
