Foley's

Asian Fusion

23 Foley Street, Fitzrovia, London, W1W 6DU

££

I went to Foley's with my mum on a sunny Saturday afternoon, following from the Casebooks exhibition in Marleybone. Foley's serves a range of dishes inspired by the spice trail, with flavours focused predominantly around the Middle East and Asia.

Upon arriving we were greeted with some complimentary puffed lotus seeds, beating the average bombay mix anyday. The menu here is quite like the restaurant itself, appearing small at first but when you take a second glance actually holds so much. The fact that there are only 4 veg options, 4 meat and 3 fish reinstates the freshness of the food and by no means limits your options. For when you take a look at the contents of each dish you are blown away by the sheer number of flavours and components.

In short, the food at Foley's is out to impress. However, this isn't in a pretentious way, as the portions are all decently sized and the prices reasonable. Diners are recommended to get 2/3 dishes each, so we ordered 5 between us. From the 'Bits & Bobs' section we went for the Ceviche endive tacos, (consisting of tuna, octopus, endive, cucumber, coconut miso leche, peanuts) and the Charcoal grilled chicken burnt ends (with Korean BBQ, spring onions and sesame seeds). The Ceviche came as a beautifully presented little parcel, colourful and delicious. The chicken burnt ends came with the most delicious sauce - I believe it's called Nuoc Cham and originates in Vietnam, at least it tasted very similar to how this sauce sounds: fish sauce, lime juice, sugar, garlic, chili peppers.

For larger dishes, we ordered the Sticky beef (with Tibetan potato puree, prawn and cabbage roll tempura, crispy shallots, daikon, togarashi) and the Pork belly (with Tamarind BBQ, apple, swede vermicelli, buttermilk, cured red onions, toasted cashews). The Sticky beef was very tasty, and came with a great juxtaposition of prawn tempura roll. The Pork belly was my favourite dish of the meal, which came as a surprise to me as I would usually favour Beef over Pork, but this little piggy was so juicy, so tender, so flavoursome that I was easily persuaded.

Taste and diversity literally pop out of the dishes at Foley's, it's great to try and work out all of the ingredients to the dish whilst eating it, and this is the perfect place to do just that. For the veg dish we went for the Kale and squash (accompanied by gem lettuce, red onion, feta, spiced quinoa, pistachio, orange). This was an explosion of colour and was presented beautifully. At first we thought that it was missing the feta, before we discovered that the feta had been pureed and drenched over the veg and salad like a sauce - delicious.

I can't remember the name of our desert but I think it was somehow associated with the word Elvis... it also had jam banana and peanut in, that's all I know. This too was a good choice and so so tasty. Foley's is not for the fussy, faint hearted or fickle - it is instead a foodie haven with some very interesting dishes with exquisite flavours. Some say it could have done with less - but when has less ever been more, really?