In Alan Bennett's memoirs, he talks about his mother's first encounter with the avocado in the '50s. Perplexed by this greengrocers' novelty, she dishes it up as an offputtingly slimy dessert. Since then, the avocado has gone seriously mainstream. It's become a superfood, a symbol to bash feckless millennials with, a crocodile-skinned icon whose image decks out pin badges and board games. And now, just as its celebrity status starts to sour (it is a water-hungry ecological nightmare, after all) it's got a new spiritual home: the chicly monomaniacal restaurant The Avocado Show.
This millennial-pink hued eatery feels like a place to swim pleasantly in nostalgia for the recent past – the aesthetic is firmly pre-pandemic, pre-cost of living crisis, pre-Instagram's decision to show us videos, not pretty pictures of other peoples' breakfasts. Plastic greenery rustles reassuringly on the walls, and cheery little avocado motifs deck the windows. Slogans warn us that we're about to eat 'pretty healthy food', and accordingly, everything is deliriously lovely to look upon, decked with little pansies and orderly sprinkles of seeds.
It felt criminal not to order the avocado toast but I didn't – send me to millennial jail! – because I wanted to challenge my weary palate with some of the restaurant's weirder offerings. Like the avocado fries, which were completely, unexpectedly delicious. Breadcrumbed and crispy on the outside, fattily melting within, these are both texturally if not ethically the vegan equivalent of foie gras. The breadless 'fun burger' was harder to love. Do you like to pick your burgers up in your hands? Go elsewhere, or find yourself greasily, unphotogenically smashing a whole avocado into your face, as the bland beetroot patty within makes a doomed bid for freedom. The 'Avo Garden' was easier to eat, but underneath its instagrammable trappings of dainty little sprouts and edible flowers it was just an avocado with underseasoned houmous in it. Still, the vegan peanut butter and avocado ice cream that followed was a joy, sweetly creamy and only politely hinting at its vegetable provenance.
The Avocado Show is a mini-chain which has four branches in its native Amsterdam, and its London offshoot buzzes with happy, shiny-haired customers – doubtless reassured by the menu's declaration that these avocados are sustainably sourced. Eco-minded chefs reckon we should all be eating mashed peas instead, and I'm sure in a few years we will be. But for now, there's something inexplicably cheering about this restaurant's late stage capitalistic fervour for turning an avocado into just about any dish imaginable: turn up, and worship at this kitschy altar to the divine crocodile pear.
The vibe A pastel-pretty eatery serving up avocado-based grub.
The food Avocado-based takes on brunch classics.
The drink Homemade lemonades, or for the brave, avo cocktails.
Time Out tip Don't pretend you're too cool to take a snap of your oh-so-pretty dinner.