1a Phillimore Gardens,
Kensington,
London,
W8 7QG
0872 148 4472
The ViewLondon Review
Themed restaurants form a rather troublesome facet of the catering industry, and tend to get treated with a certain amount of friendly ridicule.
Of course, it all comes down to classification – what actually is a “themed restaurant”? Surely if we’re being honest with ourselves, any joint that is serving anything other than the national cuisine of the country in which it can be found is actually employing a “theme”, albeit an accepted one. However accomplished a Japanese restaurant in London happens to be, it will always get a proportion of its clientele as a result of the “lets go and eat some crazy raw Japanese food” factor, even if the majority of patrons are seasoned chop stick wielders.
In practice this doesn’t happen. London has a breadth of cultural influences that would make the most well travelled hippy shudder, and the huge range of cuisines on offer mean that it would be rather childish to designate all but British restaurants as “themed”. For that reason, the only things left in this category are the restaurants that can’t be neatly labelled any other way. Thus any place with a musical connection, a famous sporting owner or a clientele that is mostly made up of actors will tend to attract this epithet.
Unlike themed bars, which are almost always run by devious and greedy accountants, themed restaurants are something of an unknown quantity – some are good, some are bad, some are interesting, some are depressing.
Sticky Fingers was conceived by Rolling Stone Bill Wyman back in the 80s, and it doesn’t take an MIT professorship to work out that rock’n’roll is the unifying idea behind it. Wyman has apparently taken a back seat now, though whether that’s a back seat in a hatchback, or one of many back seats in a Stones tour bus is anyone’s guess. Still, rock’n’roll is supposed to live forever, and Sticky Fingers appears to be proving that true.
The atmosphere upon entry was almost exactly as I had expected – a predominantly red lit diner arrangement, with acres of Stones memorabilia adorning the walls. Unlike Hard Rock or Planet Hollywood who pride themselves on their entirely unconnected collections of celebrity trinkets, Sticky Fingers are 100% pure Rolling Stones.
For a fan the sight must be pretty impressive – signed guitars sit next to original concert posters, with gold discs and photographs filling in the gaps. Autograph collecting is a risky business, but I think it’s safe to say that most of these ones have a decent provenance!
The menu is unashamedly American inspired, which I was quite prepared for. In fact, it prompted me to muse on some possible themed restaurant horrors – thank God no one has ever tried a rock’n’roll diner based on German gastronomy…
If you like meat then you’ll be in for a treat. The burgers have won awards, and steaks can weigh in at anything up to 24 ounces. There are ribs a-plenty, steak sandwiches, chicken fajitas and buffalo wings (which I assume are some kind of entrée of the moment!).
My guest for the evening was a vegetarian, and I was in the middle of a low calorie week, and so we were expecting to suffer a little at a venue so dedicated to carnivorous dining. Polly chose the vegetable fajitas. The vegetables were delivered in a fantastically alliterative and onomatopoetic sizzling skillet. The tortillas arrived in a separate dish, as did salsa, guacamole and sour cream. The final result was probably just as much down to experienced tortilla stuffing as it was to finely prepared ingredients, but the verdict was quietly congratulatory.
My own choice of fish pie was partly due to my curiosity (of what a non-meat dish might be like in this kind of place) and partly down to the PR efforts of our cheerful waitress. I was expecting it to have been fusion’ed up a bit (steeped in lemongrass, drizzled with sesame oil) but I was quite pleased to find that my pie was fairly traditional. The fish (haddock, salmon and prawn) was quite tasty, and the mash that provided the body of the dish had nicely crisp baked edges. Not bad for a temple devoted to red meat…
We didn’t concern ourselves with dessert, though the choices would delight any calorie collectors – banoffee pie, brownie sundae and Belgian waffles all sounded enticing but deadly. We did finish off our wine though, the house red which was a Chilean merlot. It was quite heavy, and had probably been chosen as a great value accompaniment (at £13.50) for steaks and burgers. Still, it had a nice flavour and received a thumbs up.
Judging by the wide variety of people eating when we visited, Sticky Fingers attracts a far wider clientele than the other themed restaurants that I’ve mentioned. Sure, there were a few tourists, but also interestingly almost as many suits as there were kids out with their folks. The place is popular, and not just because of its rock’n’roll associations. Burger fans shouldn’t miss it, and the rest of you should bear it in mind!
Sticky Fingers has been reviewed by 4 users