I don’t want to sound like a total brat here, but sometimes London can be really dull. I mean, yes there’s new stuff happening all the time but it can so often be just… samey. Take nightlife – if a new place launches, it’ll probably have good food, almost certainly do good drinks, and probably be pretty ambient. But – in the wise words of Little Mermaid’s Ariel, sometimes you just. Want. More.
So last week, I went to Circus in Covent Garden. Strictly, it’s not new – the venue opened in…. well actually, I’m not too sure. A few years ago, certainly. But it’s new to me, and I decided that that was kind of all that mattered. Sorry. How egotistical of me.
Going into Circus is kind of like going into a club – there facade is unmarked and guarded by a doorman, and you’re met with a pumping-music-cool-lighting type situ as you you find your table. Of which, incidentally, there is a variety – you can sit at the long main table (it doubles as the stage), at 5-man booths, or at variablyl sized round tables statelliting around the room.
We were on a two-man round one roughly equidistant from the bar and the stage. Which seemed a pretty good location to me. As we sat, we were presented our cocktail au choixe (me margarita, him mojito) and began to study the menu.
The food is basically Pan-Asian – things like edamame beans, miso cod, and wagu beef. But it’s far from samey – the dishes tend to have cool Circus-unique twists, too. So we tried the truffle gyoza and smoked aubergine. Amongst many, many other things. Obv.
Sporadically, the music would be ramped up and acts would appear on the stage. Each mini-set is only a few minutes long, which is great for pausing between courses (of which we had many). And there’s just something very intimate about the whole scenario. AKA great date location.
I totally lost track of time while we were in Circus, but the level of tired I felt the morning after suggested I made good use of their 2am weekend curfew. In fact, Endell Street was shockingly empty by the time we emerged -kind of like when you were little and you’d go to the cinema when it was still daylight and be all surprised when if was pitch black on departure. Sign of a good night, no?
Olivia x
