I have a friend whose mother is Jamaican and father is of Sri Lankan heritage. He has two favourite restaurants. One is Fish Wings & Tings in Brixton (owned by a Trinidadian, I should note, but Caribbean), where we eat endless plates of codfish fritters and drink rum and Ting. The other is Hoppers, the Sri Lankan and South Indian concept with branches in Soho, Marylebone and King’s Cross, each ideal for lunch meetings and doltish catch-ups.
At the Soho branch, this friend of mine will tell me about the latest in electric cars in between sips of whisky and Diet Coke. But I don’t go nearly as much as he does. He’ll message the group chat with the words “I’m in Hoppers” at least once a fortnight, occasionally alongside a photo of an egg hopper, the rice-based pancake, and a plate of devilled paneer.
I like the Soho restaurant for dining; the bar at King’s Cross is deserving of this bar column. It’s a covered, sheltered space with an elegant and inventive cocktail list, one that begins with short, sharp numbers and ends with entire bottles of arrack, the South-east Asian tipple made from fermented coconut and/or sugarcane. They are £55 and would suit anyone with designs on falling over later on.
The “tipples” at £4.75 are surely among the most reasonably priced drinks in Zone 1. Little sips — a trend that has been softly bubbling away for sometime now — that appropriate a measured beginning to an evening unknown. One is a pandan Negroni, where the Italian classic is influenced by flavours of vanilla and toasted hazelnuts (complimentary).
There is also a list of drinks only available at the King’s Cross bar. The kappi martini blends Ceylon arrack with coffee liqueur and cinnamon-punched cold brew; the southside swizzle is a marvellous concoction of gin, green mango, mint and soda, a lighter, dreaming-of-summer situation. These to punctuate any number of spicy snacks. Hot butter squid being one, mutton rolls another.
It upsets me that I’ve not been to Sri Lanka: endlessly warm, I hear, and tropical. I’ll get there eventually. I’ll sit on a distant beach with a bottle of rum and some sort of spiral of pineapple, look out to sea and gaze at the fishing boats. Until then, dreaming it is.
Drinks from about £4. 4 Pancras Sq, N1C 4AG, hopperslondon.com
