Restaurant: The Safari Club
Location: North Finchley
By Boeing: 6990 miles
By Boris Bike: 5.9 miles
The African legs of my journey have provided some of the more intriguing experiences and Kenya was intent not to buck that trend. Having sat on the northern line for almost an hour I half expected to disembark to find be-kilted ticket masters, a Haggis stall on the platform and the Aurora Borealis shimmering above. The quaint, white boarded station house was more Uttoxeter than Underground, with hills rolling into the distance and cottages sitting primly behind ponds. London has a green edge to its grey core.
The Safari Club is set back from a busy road, adjacent to a used car showroom. In truth reality takes some suspending to imagine yourself in the Serengeti. But the atmosphere is welcoming and as you take a seat in the restaurant elephants and cheetahs loom large from framed prints on the walls. An enormous carved elephant head peers over proceedings and carved ebony warriors stare out wistfully from the opposite wall.
But while the decor was Kenyan the menu was unmistakably Indian, from Keema Nan to Kulfi. For the Safari club is a Kenyan Indian, reflecting the large wave of Indian migration to the country to work on the railways. Among the subcontinent staples were a few local flavours. How could I not be tempted by the Goat Tikka? Grilled meat, including goat, is an African favourite so to combine this with Indian spice made for a welcome culinary hybrid. The deep flavour and the heat of the marinade made for a tantalising starter, that lingered longer on the palate than its chicken cousin. Washed down with Tusker, an African brew, it was one of the most appetising appetisers of the Fork and Flag odyssey.
Continuing the curry theme the main courses were a medley of Massalas and Kormas, differing little from your average neighbourhood Tandori. Except that is for one dish, the tantalisingly titled ‘Nairobi Special Chicken’. My imagination went into over drive, was the chicken itself special or the manner in which it was prepared? Should, strictly speaking, ‘chicken’ switch places with ‘special’? Ruminating thus I boldly placed the order, along with a stuffed Paratha for good measure.
Pausing for thought between courses I noted that we had still not been joined in the vast room. “A bit of luck I booked”, I said to the Eastern European waitress who looked bemused. She looked as out of place as leggings in John Lewis. The Safari Club is another example of a multi-purpose establishment, offering both a cultural meeting place for its Diaspora and an off-map, off-radar oddity of a dining experience for the culturally intrepid.
The Chicken Special Nairobi, hang on, I may have mixed the order up again there, was a fiery curry, somewhere between a Massala and a Madras. As we have created the Korma and called it Indian as have the Kenyans with this dish. It is a local expression of a foreign cuisine. Although the food was delicious it felt like an opportunity had been missed to create a unique form of fusion food. A little imagination could transform the menu and the dining experience into something desirably different.
Not that eating a curry under a wooden elephant in view of a bargain executive saloon boasting ‘electric windows’ (It isn’t 1987 for goodness sakes) is a typical Thursday occurrence. But I suspect it isn’t profitably different. In empty kitchens in empty restaurants the length and breadth of the capital chefs must be very solemn, sitting on a chair in the corner of redundant kitchens.
In an increasingly multi-cultural world perhaps hybrid restaurants are the dining experience of the future. Will, I wonder, battered Savaloy Massala ever catch on, or perhaps battered Piri Piri Sashimi? Will an unsuspecting Rotary club member tuck into a Toad in the Hole to find an Amazonian amphibian peering out from the bubbling batter? The Safari Club is somehow less than the sum of its parts, but it could yet be a trailblazer for a new cuisine for a new world.
The concept of a culinary and cultural club is in itself appealing. It suggests services far beyond the mere sating of appetites. Perhaps there is a quarterly news letter, a treasurer in a striped tie or a minited AGM? Everyone wants to be part of something. You visit a restaurant but you join a club.
A windswept walk back to the tube got me thinking that I’d probably never have reason visit this corner of London again. And perhaps I’ll never go to Nairobi either. But I’ve sampled a taste of both, and both will be fondly recalled.
