Sarastro review (Strand)

Just off Covent Garden, next to the theatre playing Woman in Black is Sarastro, a truly unique little restaurant with a wonderful kooky vibe and some delicious plates to boot.

Cute little alcoves (reminiscent of the boxes one sits in to listen to the opera) make up the restaurant, and eating your dinner in a box, slightly detached from the rest of the room, really gives your meal a cosy feel, making Sarastro a great place to bring potential dates. The menu didn’t offer a huge range of dishes, but what it did offer was creative, with each dish offering something distinctive. For starters, I had a mozzarella salad which was completely to die for. Balsamic vinegar was used sparingly, but in doing so, it really bought out the flavour of the greens, and the mozzarella cheese cubes included were absolutely delicious. I rarely rave on about salad as I generally consider it to be rabbit food, but Sarastro deserves plaudits in bringing flavour to a potentially dull dish. At £6.35, I thought it reasonably priced considering the central London location, and, honestly, the delightful sensations your taste buds will experience when consuming it makes it worth every penny.

For the main, I had beef bourguignon. With most classy London diners (of which I consider Sarastro one), if you order a meat dish, it will be cooked very well, but there will not be a whole lot of it. In Sarastro’s case, there was quantity and quality of meat aplenty. The beef was complemented perfectly with carrots, potatoes, onion and red wine sauce, each ingredient which bought out the flavour of the beef, and the beef itself was helpfully divided into little “strips”, which made consuming it amusing as it was delicious. Finally, for dessert, I had assorted ice cream, which was modestly priced at £4.50. Again, it was delicious.

Overall, the Sarastro was a completely worthwhile gastronomical experience, with the restaurant also boasting a homely, offbeat vibe that the majority are sure to love. Come 8 o’clock there was also live music as a violinist and a viola player duetted on Ravel’s Bolero. To give their playing extra spice, they walked around the restaurant, coming up into the individual alcoves to momentarily serenade the customers. Their playing, as with the restaurant as a whole, were utterly charming.

Grade: A