Restaurant Review: Lunch at Bao, Fitzrovia

Style Points: 4/5
Price: ££
Overall: 4/5

Serving up more of those fluffy white comforting buns, Bao Fitzrovia is the highly anticipated and much needed second restaurant in this delectable Taiwanese street-food restaurant venture.

Unlike it's Soho based sister restaurant, Bao Fitzrovia is a bright and decently siezed space with a large kitchen counter where the seating is focused. Simple aesthetics and beyond cute cutlery accompany this minimalist vibe which Bao is infamous for.

Surprisingly for Bao, when I arrived at the Fitzrovia branch for lunch there was no queue to speak off and I got a table straight away, something which would very rarely be the case at the Soho branch.

What’s on the menu?

The menu at Bao Fitzrovia is short and with a few added extras not available at the Soho branch. These include a variety of rice bowls, but I was here for the moreish comforting Bao and set about ordering some classics.

Tea is a must at Bao and I ordered the Hong Yu tea to go with a starter of grilled lettuce gem with confit garlic. This was the perfect, juicy dish to awaken my taste-buds and I then moved onto the Baos themselves.

I opted for the Classic Bao, a Bao filled with braised pork, crunchy shallots adding texture, and hot sauce which delivered the spice. I also tried the Cod Black Bao, a new addition available only at the Fitzrovia branch, The fried cod, Ng sauce and more hot sauce meant this Bao was delectable.

Sadly, and this is the one downside of Bao Fitzrovia, there is no dessert on the menu, so instead I ordered more tea to end the meal and somehow resisted the insatiable urge to order even more baos.

Could I afford to dine here again?

My lunch at Bao Fitzrovia come to £15, which is a price I’d happily pay for those addictive Bao’s on a lunchtime foray. Although the menu is short here, it is easy to over order at the dishes are so good, so be prepared to spend more than expected if you will-power gives way!

Overall?

Bao Fitzrovia has many benefits that the original branch at Soho doesn’t. The large and airy ground floor dining area, the bookable basement dining space and the distinctly shorter and quicker queues are some of these.

However the lack of dessert leaves me craving the infamous Holicks ice cream Bao served at the Soho branch and means that I will most probably head for that branch in future.