Dinner, dinner, dinner, dinner... Batman! Yep, it’s only a Caped Crusader-themed restaurant. It might sound gimmicky, but diners are in for a superheroic treat at Park Row. Enter via a secret mahogany bookcase, follow the bat signal all the way downstairs to the bat cave and through the ominous supervillain-esque entrance to reveal another world. The first thing you’ll notice is how grand the space is. We’re talking 18,000 square feet encompassing five separate areas. Dress up fancy, but strictly no fancy dress, because nobody will be in costume and you will be turned away if you show up in a mask and cape.
We didn’t have £195 spare for the 11-course tasting menu at the intimate 20-seater Monarch Theatre section, which is protected from the view of other diners by a giant metal box, so we opted for a three-course meal at the Iceberg Lounge. The starter, a chunky hand-cut steak tartare with confit egg, fried beef tendons and Berkswell cheese, was a slightly too fussy dish with an unnecessary tapioca cracker add-on that lacked a little oomph.
The fish course main was a meaty and faultless dover sole à la grenbloise, topped with tiny croutons and samphire. A fanciful twist comes in with the rich sides: potato lobster croquettes, bathed in crème fraîche and aruga caviar and breadcrumbed mac and cheese with a light (a little too light) dusting of truffle shavings.
We chose to Seal the meal with the multisensory ‘A Kiss from a Rose’ dessert. Fans will know that this is an ode to the ‘Batman Forever’ soundtrack. It comes complete with a real rose dipped in liquid nitrogen that’s crumbled and sprinkled over a lemon-and-raspberry tart.
Staff were attentive and the service was smooth. One of the waiters even put a hood over my dish during a toilet break to keep food warm, which was a nice touch. Part of the pleasure of dining at Park Row are its frills and absorbing the classiness that isn’t too white-tablecloth stuffy. There’s no getting away from the fact that a night at Park Row is going to be expensive, but the prices are roughly in line with those of its upmarket Soho neighbours.
Along with eating top-notch nosh, diehard Batman fans can have fun spotting all the subtle Easter eggs in Catwoman’s rogues’ gallery, which displays reproductions of world-famous stolen art on the walls, Old Gotham City, a speakeasy-style cocktail bar featuring a bust of Jack Nicholson’s Joker, and a lounge bar named Pennyworth’s after Batman’s butler Alfred. But whatever you do, don’t say you prefer Marvel over DC.