The Concept
The most distinctive and playful restaurant in the popular (and still, crucially, privately owned) Daisy Green group is Ziggy Green – as the name suggests, a homage to all things David Bowie. The connection, of course, is that he shot the cover of his Ziggy Stardust album just outside, and in honour of such, its décor is festooned with images of the Thin White Duke and his friends, collaborators and lovers in their Seventies pomp, while its superb cocktail menu is full of knowing nods. Mercifully, the food doesn't follow Bowie's more ascetic dietary habits (just as well given that he famously lived off milk and red peppers for a prolonged period in the Seventies). Instead, Daisy Green founders, Prue Freeman and Tom Onions (also founding members of street food collective, KERB) prove that as well as knowing their seventies-era Bowie, they also very much know their modern, Australian-leaning cooking.
Where
The restaurant lurks on the foodie enclave of Heddon Street, just off Regent Street and not too far from either Soho or Mayfair. Sitting comfortably among its chi-chi neighbours, Ziggy Green offers an intimate dining room of around 40 covers that manages to strike the balance between lively and relaxed, its light and well-lit room perfectly suited to easy dining, its banquettes comfortable and is beautifully curved bar promising treats. And then there's the basement – a marvellous surprise worth saving time for if you want a time-hopping post-prandial trip down memory lane (more on which later).
To Start
No proper repast here should begin without a cocktail, which are taken very seriously indeed, whether it's the whisky-based Electric Cinema or the Bowie-homaging take on an espresso martini, in the form of the Black Star. Then it's time to decide whether you want to go for the a la carte lunch menu, or stick to the brunch options, but either way you'd be a fool to miss out on the small sharing plates, a smorgasbord of Aussie-inspired treats. The clay-fired flatbread with pepperberry salt and the slightly spicy crispy Aussie prawns are divine, but perhaps the best offering here is the fire roasted carrots with harissa and garlic hummus. We doubt you'll find better anywhere.
The Main Event
If you're in the market for brunch, then you can construct something very delicious to your own specifications, if you start with a dish like the avocado and poached eggs on charcoal sourdough and then add in bacon, smoked salmon or anything else you fancy. If you're more interested in a lunch dish, then the likes of Thai beef salad or fire roasted aubergine with wild rice are mouth-wateringly delicious and come as the perfect portion size; this is a place for hungry people, who will neither leave hungry nor uncomfortably weighed down. And there's a decent Aussie and Southern Hemisphere-focused wine list, too. We had a very nice Chardonnay from Riverland, 16 Stops, which has all the buttery richness and complexity needed to hold its own accompanying such flavour-intense plates.
And Finally
Puddings are concise but well chosen. Roasted mango with clotted cream ice cream is light and elegant, while the banana bread remains a firm favourite. The real headline act, though, is the buttermilk pancakes with berries, mascarpone and maple syrup – a dish that proved just too much even for our determined ten-year-old.
Bonus Round
One reason for the restaurant's relatively small size is that the basement contains one of London's real oddities; a painstaking recreation of Soho's (in)famous Colony Club, where Francis Bacon and Peter O'Toole drank, where the bartender Dick Bradsell invented the espresso martini and where the demi-monde got blind drunk while stacking up increasingly enormous and often never paid bar tabs. You won't be getting anything on credit here, but the spirit of bohemian London still remains strong within its green-painted walls. Here, prices remain at 2008 levels (double gin and tonics for £6, espresso martinis for a tenner etc), mobile phones are banned and you can still find a few gawping Soho stalwarts, unable to believe that they've gone back in time.
The Takeaway
Ziggy Green is one of London's most stylish and fun spots, leaning into its colourful history and Bowie-inspired legacy with real pizzazz. We suspect that the erstwhile David Jones would have loved it – even if the Colony Club might have brought back some unfortunate flashbacks. And if you're in the mood for finding out more about the food and wine, the restaurant offers regular 'Paired' wine dinners, the next one being a six-course extravaganza on the 31 March and featuring Sam Barry of Jim Barry Wines (Clare Valley) and Ernst 'Erni' Loosen of Dr. Loosen (Mosel).
Key Details
- Location: Heddon Street, London W1
- Nearest Tube: Oxford Circus / Piccadilly Circus
- Cuisine: Australian-inspired / Modern European
- Best for: Brunch, cocktails, casual dining
- Price: ££
By Alexander Larman
