By Often referred to as London's most influential restauranteur, Karam Sethi's openings are notorious for predicting the next trend we'll all be queuing up for. Whether it's Sri Lankan pancakes at his Soho joint Hoppers or champagne and hotdogs at Bubbledogs, his portfolio at JKS Restaurants are continually injecting life into the London restaurant scene.
Which is why when they announced they would be opening Brigadiers, an Indian barbecue restaurant and live sports bar in Bloomsbury Arcade, people took notice.
The City can get a hard time when it comes to the London foodie scene. Openings here are unlikely to be the hottest new thing. Instead you can expect chains and second outposts of restaurants which have already broken new ground in trendier neighbourhoods.
The phrase 'sports bar' is also unfortunate, conjuring as it might images of Ridley's Leicester Square or a wall of television screens playing the NBA Playoffs in Atlantic City. But at Brigadiers the live sports element manages to blend into the atmosphere without annoying diners, thanks mainly to the smart layout of the restaurant designed by industry veterans BradyWilliams Studio.
In two areas - Blighters and The Tap Room - guests can play pool in front of screens playing sports and in the Kukri private dining room there are cards tables so people can play classic carid games while they eat and drink.
Tucked away from this is the main dining room, which stretches around a central bar where you can order a mosaic spritz with tropical soda and eat bar snacks like the masala chicken skins or pork scratchings with cods roe and green chilli raita.
Brigadiers doesn't shy away from the excess and spirit of the City. Instead the self-titled drinking tavern offers revellers beers on rotation, on-tap cocktails, Champagne and punch fountains, self-serve fast-pour beer taps and a whisky vending machine. All of which sounds like it might be the formula for another raucous drinking hole teeming with weeknight suits, were it not for the food.
Barbecued meats such as their five spice chicken chops or dry tandoori masala beef rib-eye steak all come seasoned and seared to perfection. A lobster and shrimp kati roll combines tender meat with the crisped shell of the wrap and BBQ chicken wings have you greedily licking butter off your hands. A dish of sliced and fried crispy cubes of potato with a tangy masala ketchup, meanwhile, is worth a trip to Bloomsbury Arcade alone.
Despite the news last year that 50 per cent of Britain's curry houses will close within the next ten years, Indian restaurants are hugely popular in the capital. JKS Restaurants pioneered modern Indian cooking in London with their restaurants Gymkhana, Trishna and Hoppers.
These spots have paved the way for a wave of restaurants celebrating innovative Indian cooking such as Bombay cafe Dishoom, home-style Indian cuisine spot Gunpowder and British and Indian small plate restaurant Kricket.
"Our grandfather was a Brigadier in the Gurkha 4th rifles regiment, so really the whole inspiration for Brigadiers comes from his experience in the Indian army, and the mess taverns where he and his regiment would go to eat, drink and socialise," Sethi told Esquire when asked about the inspiration behind Brigadiers. "When we were growing up in North West London, there were lots of Indian pubs showing live sport so in a nostalgic sense we’ve also built upon our experience of these."
In explaining why they chose the oft-scorned location Sethi said, "The City has been lacking proper destination restaurants for a long time, so we were keen to bring something to the area that hit on what it needs."
Brigadiers steps up to the challenge of creating a fun destination to drink that more than holds its own as a restaurant. Staying late on a Wednesday and seeing a table crooning over a short-rib a few feet from people celebrating Croatia beating Argentina, it certainly looked like the spot to spend the summer.
