Restaurant Ours brunch review: Where a catwalk entrance leads to an inside garden

The drinks are taken just as seriously as the food, and it's all camera ready, but really, it's all about the interior

Brunching out...

Sometimes you stumble upon something and there’s quite literally nothing that denotes it’s there. You could easily walk past and not know what’s inside. And perhaps that’s what Restaurant Ours wants here, a sort of invite-only for those in the know. But the same cannot be said for inside, where plenty of thought has gone into making the interiors as Insta-friendly as possible, letting diners do the marketing for them.

When I walk through the unassuming door, I’m met with a large, white tunnel walkway with an illuminated white floor leading to the restaurant. I’m 99.9 per cent sure it’s designed to represent a catwalk (it’s even the first thing you see on the website). That says it all. Who goes to a restaurant looking for the catwalk?

Inside is a huge open area with a floor-to-ceiling living wall (it’s real, I checked) and a couple of 10ft tall olive trees with a huge central bar. Brunch is a relatively new addition here, (even though the whole place looks made solely for that) and is served on weekends between 12pm and 5.30pm. The bottomless option is either prosecco or Perrier-Jouet champagne.

At the helm in the kitchen is head chef Douglas Santi – who previously worked with French chef Alain Ducasse – the menu is large and a mish-mash of fusions, from Mediterranean to Latin and Asian. We do as we’re told and order one from each of the four sections (while you wait, small plates, large plates and sides).

The black cod is served with pickled ginger and cucumber and a baked lotus root chip

The small plates are the more breakfasty dishes, with the likes of pancakes, egg white omelette and asparagus soldiers, which I chose (the recipe is below). It’s the adult version of dippy eggs, wrapped in palma ham. The best dish is the black cod from the large plates: a silky chunk of bright white meat that falls quite literally falls apart at the touch of a fork. We share a side of the truffle parmesan chips – our waiter’s recommendation – which are pretty indulgent and moreish.

The drinks are taken extremely seriously. Each little concoction has its own story of creation and is without doubt made to be camera-ready. I go for the gin in a bottle – earl grey infused gin – that comes in a mini Aladdin’s lamp with plumes of dry ice spilling out which seem to know no end. But the best of the few we try is the #kissme, a mix of vodka, sake, rose wine and cherry syrup, but not as sickly sweet as it sounds.

While it’s rather quiet inside – it’s about 30 degrees outside – there’s little of the wannabe influencers spending more time modelling than eating, and there’s not a celeb insight either. The best bit? The small terrace where you can enjoy a shisha afterwards. You’d certainly never know it was there.

Restaurant Ours, 264 Brompton Road, Knightsbridge SW3 2AS; 020 7100 2200; restaurant-ours.com

Brunching in...

(Restaurant Ours)

British asparagus soldiers

Serves 2

6 green asparagus 
4 free range eggs
4 slices of sourdough bread 
12 slices of smoked pancetta 
30g of unsalted butter 
Salt and pepper 

In a pot with salted boiling water, cook the asparagus for just two minutes and cool down with running cold water.

Roll the slices of pancetta around the asparagus. In a pan with butter fry the asparagus until it gets golden and crisp, boil your eggs for 5 minutes and serve all with toasted sourdough.

Recipe from Restaurant Ours head chef Douglas Santi