LDNReview
photo credit: Sketch
Sketch
Included In
It’s December 2002. Girls Aloud are #1 with The Sound Of The Underground, Pierce Brosnan has retired as Bond, and Victoria Beckham has just taken a leak in a giant Clarence Court egg in Mayfair’s hottest new restaurant. No, this isn’t the story of where she placed her final horcrux. This is the story of the Gallery at Sketch, one of London’s most wildly popular and entirely pointless attractions.
Less a restaurant and more an experiment in vanity, Sketch invented the Instagram restaurant before Instagram invented itself. Much of the Gallery in this townhouse—from the art-lined walls, to the lurid velvet furniture—is designed to be pictured and pouted at. Go on. Do it. Because if there’s one thing Sketch’s popularity has proven, it’s that we really do eat with our eyes. Delicious rose gold lamps. Heavenly multi-coloured lights. Fantastic quirky crockery. Anything, as long as it isn’t from the menu.
The food at Sketch is like that weird kid at school. Not the one who was quiet, kooky, and warmed up with attention. But the one who moulded cityscapes out of their bogies. Before forcing them in your mouth and taking all your money. Food isn’t really what Sketch is famous for, though. The most famous thing about this restaurant is its toilets. Which is like having a puppy that makes everyone depressed. That said, these egg-shaped portaloos are well known for good reason. For the selfies, and also for London’s most memorably expensive on-the-bog Twitter scrolls. But eventually you’ll have to leave this whitewashed, Diptyque-scented, free-range room. And that means you’ll have to go back to your food.
Anyone who comes here shouldn’t be shocked by their meal. Not by the random sugar tuile and icing sugar on their porcini tart, or by the magnificent tower of undercooked onion rings. This is a superficial restaurant, so it’s no surprise the food doesn’t stand up. Yes it’s aesthetically pleasing. Or at the very least, different. But look a little closer, chew a little longer, be upsold a little higher, and you’ll realise that there’s nothing attractive about an overpriced and inedible meal.