Balans

Description: Trendy London-based restaurant chain, serving international dishes and cocktails that are not half bad

Location: Soho and Chiswick (other untested branches in Westfield, Earls Court, Kensington)

Nearest station: Soho (Leicester Square or Tottenham Court Road) / Chiswick (Turnham Green)

Offer: With a Balans ‘Royalty Card’ card, for every £1 spend your card will be credited with one point; on earning 250 points you will be entitled to receive a credit of £25 to spend in the restaurant. Also, ‘Happy Hour’, 4-6pm Mon-Sat, means buy-one-get-one-free cocktails!

Best seat in the house: When heading to the Soho branch, ask if you can sit at the back of the restaurant in one of their circular booths for more privacy/ when with a larger group

Top tip: Fancy a late one with friends? Balans is open until 5am on Mon-Thurs and on Sundays, and until 6am on Fri-Sat (serving food and drinks all the while). With locations spread across London, this is ideal for post theatre/ gig/ drinks etc!

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Located at 60 Old Compton street, Balans Soho is ideally situated in an easy to find, central location. This branch is dark and not especially spacious inside, but it does have a lively and trendy atmosphere.

What’s great about this restaurant is that it has a number of attributes that you rarely find in such a central location; it is generally easy to get a table, the staff are cute and fun, food is typically delicious and not overly expensive, and the portion sizes tend to be huge.  The fact that it is open until the early hours (shutting for a mere 3 hours most days, to prep for breakfast which starts at 8am), is unusual and worth remembering. The idea of being able to reserve a table for drinks in the wee hours is unheard of, no?

The menu at Balans is broad and international, but unlike most restaurants with expansive menus, Balans gets the majority of its cooking spot on. The starters are best: the truffled chicken liver parfait is rich and luxurious, served with sourdough and red onion marmalade; the chicken gyoza, a plate of five Chinese style dumplings served with a spicy chilli sauce, packs a punch; and the greek plate is a generous assortment of tzatziki, houmous, taramasalata, feta, kalamata olives and flat bread. Priced between £5.75 and £6.95, the starters offer good value and are great to share (excluding the seared scallop dish, which is disproportionately small in comparison).

Equally, the main courses are varied, tasty and HUGE. The seafood jambalaya (£13.50) is another sumptuous dish, generously portioned and choc-a with shrimp, clams, mussels and chorizo. The Roquefort, endive and fennel salad (£7.95), served with iceberg lettuce, candied walnuts and citrus dressing, is also a delight. The only criticisms I’ve come across with the main courses relate to the burgers (£11.50) – lovely meat, stale bread – you have been warned!

And to finish, (and to start, and several throughout), the cocktails! I’ve found these patchy – sometimes the ‘Sicilian Kiss’ (£6.85) is a dream - citrus vodka, lemoncello, passion fruit liqueur and sicilian lemonade over crushed ice – d r e a m! On off days, it’s a voddy squash. The ‘Porn Star’ (£8.25), made up of vodka, vanilla sugar, vanilla syrup, passion fruit puree and a champagne shot, is consistently delish – boom!

To sum up, I think Balans is a great place – its stylish without being pretentious, and reasonably priced but with a strong menu full of generous dishes with “bold flavours” (Greg Wallace, eat your heart out – literally, please). It’s a find, and a good place to keep under your hat for when you find yourself wandering the Soho streets at 4am, which happens.