Grace and flavour - Rita's Bar & Dining

In recent weeks I have eaten London. Large expanses of it, in a brioche bap with a side of fries, down my gullet, chomp, chomp, burp. My behaviour in many restaurants — of which there seem to be three new openings per day — has been akin to a lipstick-smeared Godzilla, picking up a jocund Japanese fishing harbour with her lizardy paws and guzzling it as a light amuse-bouche. I make no apologies. London tastes incredible right now. OK, not all of it: the roasted chestnuts they sell by the London Eye still taste like cat poo sprayed with MSG, but you’re far too clever to buy those.

This week, to my pride-tinged shame, I visited Rita’s Bar & Dining in Dalston — on two occasions. Look at me in profile in my new Day Birger et Mikkelsen clingy frock if you don’t believe me (if there were suddenly a stiff frost, I could outlive a polar bear). My first trip to Rita’s was a pre-planned jaunt; the second time I was sat in a completely different restaurant, on the brink of ordering, when I was struck by the sheer fatuousness of eating food that wasn’t sticky ginger and soy hot wings, ox-heart tacos, rabbit buns and beef patty melts served in toasted, sliced white cheesy bread cooked by Gabriel Pryce and his gang (Rita’s is a travelling, quasi-pop-up affair run by Pryce, Missy Flynn and Jackson Boxer — he of Brunswick House Café). So I put down the menu, stood up and called a taxi. I’ve since quizzed Gabriel as to what the hell he puts in the chicken glaze and accused him directly of it being morphine or something else soothing and jolly, which he denied furiously while passing me more napkins for my soy-covered face.

Obviously, an orthodox food reviewer would urge you to visit Rita’s, but I’d rather you didn’t as it’s quite busy enough, thank you. There were gangs flooding out on to the street, impatiently waiting for their names to be called (no reservations, you just add your name to a clipboard). In fact, I was in two minds to tell you that I witnessed the ghost of a small child in the toilet, howling ‘Get out!’, simply to ensure there will be more chicken burgers, grilled corn, and Key lime pie with jellybean-infused tequila for me, but apparently, since the Leveson Inquiry, my ‘strings of lies masquerading as fact’ are ‘not the done thing’.

So, fine, go to Rita’s if you must. Go, if really exemplary barbecue-style sharing plates and sides such as rich macaroni cheese topped with fine green pepper, or crunchy, mustardy greens and stiff frozen margaritas served in paper cups are your type of thing.

However, there are some things you need to know. Firstly, Rita’s is currently in a sort of abandoned shop/hipster basement nightclub called Birthdays. Bloc Party played there last week. Bianca Jagger brought her friends by for margaritas. If this sounds painfully hip, it damn well is. I don’t match the words ‘painfully’ and ‘hip’ very often, but if the vision of flurries of carefree under-25s clad in thrift-shop bargain-bin finds — looking a lot to the untrained eye like The Muppet Orchestra — shreds your nerves, then you may have issues with Rita’s.

Secondly, the Dark and Stormy cocktails and simple chicken bun served in a paper bag are currently some of my most exquisite London pleasures, better even, in my opinion, than Pitt Cue, Duck & Waffle, Lucky Chip and Hawksmoor Guildhall. And thirdly, like all the best restaurants in London right now, Rita’s might not even be in the place I just told you by the time you go there.

Yes, once again I write a review feeling like Fanny from Enid Blyton’s The Magic Faraway Tree trying to explain an ever-moving otherworld at the top of the magic ladder. You’ll need to use your own brain cells, eyes and internet skills to find out where it’s popping up next — or ask a helpful adult to do it for you. If this is beyond your capabilities, then I’m not sure you deserve Rita’s wings and tacos anyway. Off to Chicken Cottage with you.