The Basement Galley’s Underground Supper Club

Did you notice when people stopped going to restaurants primarily for the food? We now go more for the exposed cables dangling off the ceiling, hooking piranhas that are swimming in a neon green fish tank that encases the open kitchen in the middle of the restaurant. Well, as conceptual eating goes, this is the Marcel Duchamp urinal of the pop-up game (albeit far more sanitary). Set in a disused tube carriage in Walthamstow, this supper club takes you from mildly curious and peckish to fully approving, ‘golly, TFL have really got their act together’, in seven stops. My only complaint was that the tube carriage didn’t segue our merry band of revellers directly onto the Victoria line after the dinner.

Located among industrial warehouses, finding the place is a bit of a challenge. None of the patrolling security guards could understand what on earth my friend and I were doing traipsing around a Safestore warehouse of a Thursday night looking for a seven course dinner. Upon arrival, James, who calls himself ‘head schweff’, front of house for The Basement Galley duo, offered us champagne and kept us fully liquidated throughout the evening. If only every tube journey was like this. Once you get past the surreal feeling of having dinner on a tube carriage, you are able to actually enjoy the spiced peach and plum pavlova (a clear winner for sweetooths). While I would hesitate to call coffee and biscotti a course in itself, the meal will not leave a diner disappointed. The G&T mid-meal palate cleanser reaches the disorientating conceptual heights of the setting and is surely the most innovative take on the G&T that even the most seasoned drinker has ever had. Word of warning: the tube carriage can get a little chilly, so wrap up in case the heaters bail on you. But, all in all, much better service than TFL.