Bubala Soho, London W1: 'Lunch doesn't always have to have a face to be fabulous' - restaurant review | Grace Dent on restaurants

The new Bubala in Soho has such a deliciously formulated menu and such well-positioned branding that my lunch guest was for some time quite oblivious she was in a meatless restaurant. She loves modern Middle Eastern cuisine and was keen on the fancy hummus, braised hispi cabbage and charred oyster mushrooms on skewers. It wasn't until after the third time she attempted to add "maybe a chicken dish" to our order that the penny finally dropped. "There's no chicken," I revealed. Sometimes when I offer vegetarian food to friends, my tactic is subterfuge: gently, gently, I'll lure you into my world of silken tofu and seitan worship. Lunch doesn't always need to have had a face to be fabulous.

Luckily, in Bubala, you can calm down a carnivore with the sticky corn ribs with black garlic pilpelchuma, and hot challah to greedily slide into bowls of baba ganoush glazed with curry leaf oil and pine nuts. Bubala Soho is the second incarnation of this outfit, after Helen Graham and Marc Summers made successful debuts at Spitalfields about three years ago, when I heard nothing but good things about this rather stylish place, herbal, which is clearly influenced by tastes. d'Ottolenghi and de Moro.

I wondered if the pandemic could finish off such places, leaving only financially depreciated big beasts to thrive. Hell no: Bubala has brought his sumptuous chamomile and honey smothered halloumi chunks and candied potato latkes to Soho. It's just a short walk from the delicious new Firebird I recently wrote about, and it's not far from Dai Chi, the kushiage spot that fed me in April. Soho is an unfathomable entity right now: rents and activity rates are extortionate, commuters only show their faces three days a week, if that, and store openings seem to be made up entirely of American candy stores, but in W1, restaurants are still opening at lightning speed.