Review: tashas, Battersea
Review: tashas, Battersea
Every now and then a new restaurant pops up in south London that you feel as if you know intimately before you even set foot there, all thanks to Instagram. This truism certainly applies to tashas, the UK branch of restaurateur Natasha Sideris’ South African café chain. Mouth-watering videos of the restaurant’s creamy prawn pasta have been making the rounds on socials in recent weeks, and like any self-respecting pasta lover I had to make time to find out for myself whether it’s all worth it.
Located in prime position just outside the behemoth landmark of Battersea Power Station, tashas certainly looks as though it deserves to be counted among the Power Station’s impressive repertoire of popular, upscale restaurants. The décor is sparse yet stylish, with low lights and cushioned seats lending a sense of comfortable, muted intimacy to its atmosphere.
We started off with signature cocktails – a Paloma Esmeralda made with rooster rojo blanco, coriander, lime, agave, grapefruit soda, and maldon salt, and a Passion Fruit Margarita with rooster rojo blanco, passion fruit, sun dried orange, lime, agave, and maldon salt. Both were delicious and proved the perfect opener to our meal.
To begin with food, we opted to start with one choice from the starter menu and one salad. Our starter choice of sun-dried tomato dip with melba toast was fabulous, the dip rich and full-flavoured with chickpeas, sundried tomato, parmesan, pine nuts, and fresh herbs, pairing well with light cracker slices of melba toast perfect for scooping. The highlight, however, was in fact the Texas salad. A popular choice for restaurants these days; made up of corn, feta, cherry tomatoes, kalamata olives, basil, and rocket, the salad was paired with a deceptively simple basil lemon pesto dressing that elevated the dish to excellent. It’s rare that one comes away from a restaurant recommending the salad, but this one was certainly worth it.
Next it was time for the dish of the hour: the prawn pasta of Instagram fame. A beautifully-presented dish of rigatoni, tiger prawns, prego sauce, lemon butter, roasted tomatoes, stracciatella and toasted bread crumbs. I am pleased to say it lived up to the hype: rich and with a surprising depth of flavour, succulent prawns, and creamy pockets of stracciatella that offset the delicious tang of the roasted tomatoes.
It’s safe to say tashas proved itself not to be all social media smoke and mirrors. While the prices may make some widen their eyes, the portions are large enough and the flavours good enough to justify it. A warm and intimate setting provides a great place to settle in for a stylish dinner after a day of upmarket shopping at the Power Station.
