Don’t be put off by the somewhat inauspicious location of Restaurant Sat Bains – you arrive having travelled down a rather shabby lane and it sits under a busy flyover – the incongruity is on purpose.
For Bains, if you haven’t got a fancy postcode to rely on then the food you serve has to be absolutely top notch, and in the case of his restaurant this is definitely the case.
As well as being one of the UK’s most influential restaurants in recent times, having become a breeding ground for chefing talent, it’s also one of the most ambitious and there's been taking a foot off the throttle. At the start of 2022 owners Sat and his wife Amanda reduced the number of covers to just 28 in the dining room and also cut the number of hours staff work to create a better working environment but also an even more heightened experience for diners
In addition to the main dining room guests can take the four-seat Kitchen Bench within the pastry section of the main kitchen or opt for the Tasting Room, which looks directly onto the savoury kitchen.
At his restaurant, Bains is in search of perfection. He’s constantly tweaking and playing with ideas, meaning that a dish one week may have morphed into something different the week after. This approach extends to the restaurant itself, with the recent creation of a cigar hut, where diners can round off a meal with a cigar and a digestif.
