There's nothing like a financial crisis to get the creative juices flowing. An East London-sized universe of creative thrift, vintage clothing and work wear is having its day, and exclusivity - in bars, clubs and restaurants - is more about hard-to-find destinations than a credit card on the bar. While top flight sashimi might have hiccupped with the banks, comfort food is the business and cheap cuts of meat and farmers' markets ascendant. Austerity Britain has seen a boom in underground dining and private supper clubs spurred by the return of the dinner party - they're boisterous, secretive affairs; competitive, hyper social and all about the food.
Sadly, few of us can afford the sorts of bashes thrown a century ago by robber barons and aristos (New Yorker C.K.G. Billings put on a shindig involving horses in a turfed high-rise hotel ballroom where waiters dressed as grooms served mounted guests), but London has plenty to offer those in the know seeking a night out somewhere a little different.
Not content showing off for friends, a bunch of amateur cooks, workaholic chefs with nights off and cookbook junkies have been throwing open their kitchen doors and employing social media and word of mouth to attract curious foodies and social types looking for an experience beyond a high street dinner. Underground dining might have become almost mainstream these days, but an element of mystery maintains, given the unpredictable locations, secret menus and artistic/theatrical extras dished up to entertain the punters (and take their minds off the chaos reigning in tiny kitchens).
Alongside the various descriptions of 'underground', 'secret', 'pop-up', 'flash', there's 'nomadic', which best describes Gingerline, whose pop-up events near stations along the newish 'ginger' coloured East London Overground line combine a thoroughly curated mix of the culinary and creative.
A collaboration between Kindle Theatre and food art practitioners Blanch & Shock has resulted in some flamboyantly over- the-top eating experiences that recall body shock performance art and the more spectacular examples of cinematic blow-outs (La Grande Bouffe, The Cook, the Thief, His Wife, and Her Lover). Their recent 'Eat Your Heart Out' gig - "a theatrical banquet at the end of the world" - featured an end times menu of 'asteroid ash', stew served in tin cans with coal bread and 'chocolate cake soil' alongside actors playing out a doom-laden narrative.
El Bulli trained, Portuguese born Nuno Mendes started off in his own underground restaurant, The Loft, before opening Viajante in the restored Bethnal Green Town Hall in 2010. Despite the location, or perhaps, because of it (gritty cum cutting edge) - his innovative menu - fomented in the avant garde hothouse of El Bulli and nuanced at his home-run gaff - has already won him a 2011 Michelin star.
S.Pellegrino World's 50 Best Restaurants leaders René Redzepi's Noma and Heston Blumenthal's Fat Duck combine world beating gastronomy with a an imaginative flair and sense of fun that can be lacking in Michelin's pantheon of starred dining. Beyond the thermomixers and centrefuges, there's a wistfulness and recognition that our interactions with food can be transformative - far beyond the stiffness of tablecloths or sniffiness of waiters.
At the other end of the spectrum, there has been a cabaret revival - see the growing Proud cabaret and supper club stable; the London sibling of New York's shock-burlesque The Box (with a Big Apple accented comfort food menu); a soon to open basement space at The Soho Theatre; and the East London burlesque circuit. Hardly 1920s Berlin cheap, but offering dinner with theatre by the bucket load.
The crescendo of online food chatter - blogs, Tweets, et al - is such that innovative and art-minded restaurateurs, bartenders and chefs are creating their own scene outside the orbit of landlords, licensing and broadsheet restaurant critics. And with the proprietors so close to the action, it's no surprise that speakeasies, supper clubs, cabarets and underground diners are the goods when it comes to injecting a bit of adventure and spontaneity into a night out on the nosh.
Have you eaten underground?