GASTRO CHIC: Almada

The “in” place in London over the fall of 2009 with Eva Herzigova and Pamela Anderson sitting at tables close to us. This place was so cool, the number was unlisted and it was allegedly illegally opened without a liquor license and didn’t have any sign outside....just a menacing bouncer. We had to come here I was told by my consistently cutting edge girlfriend....so I wearily went about the process of calling in favours from everyone in town. The seating arrangements are handled personally by the manager and part owner, Carlos Almada and reservations only can be made through his mobile number. I finally managed to convince it out of a good friend of mine, who I promised shamelessly to promote his INCREDIBLE concierge service (http://www.blackcardlondon.com/) and allowed him the use of my kitchen for him to film a cooking program starring himself....and he wasted it by doing a program on using Marmite! (http://dinnerwithpatrick.blogspot.com/search?updated-min=2009-01-01T00%3A00%3A00-08%3A00&updated-max=2010-01-01T00%3A00%3A00-08%3A00&max-results=8, scroll down to Dec 06, 2009).

Almada is sexy and cool with a great atmosphere of who’s who in London and I later came back and took a huge table here for my birthday. The Thursday night combination with Almada and Anabels was legendary.....but this was all back in 2009. Approaching 2011, the place re-opened and was half empty with the food just as mediocre as before. The only thing which was consistent was the bulging bill. Much more accommodating to people making a reservation, people should still come here for the experience though, but its lost the luster and mystery which kept it going. Every time we come here we always debate how the rent gets paid, as its prime time Berkeley Square real estate and the brunch restaurant, Automat, above belongs to the same group. Rumours of a members only club on the bottom floor have been swirling for years with the place still looking like a construction site.