Baity Kitchen (Restaurant)

Best for: An inexpensive but delicious Middle Eastern meal in SW3; healthy stuff like puy lentils, chickpeas and pomegranates.

Great: Snug and cosy café; soft piano music; casual dining.

This is 100% made in Chelsea, but with a twist. It’s Saturday night. As we enter SW3, we’re expecting posh accents, fast cars, polo boys and Champagne-guzzling girls with hair extensions.

What do we get? A very quiet, relaxed and unpretentious meal at a sweet little Mediteranean and Middle Eastern restaurant. There are no socialites here, no love triangles, no talk of jewellery launches, no long-haired camp lotharios, no early evening dining before tottering off to Raffles nightclub.

Baity Kitchen is, admittedly, more of a daytime café/deli, hence why it is ‘very quiet’ on a Saturday night. But as I venture from Hackney to Chelsea, I’m pleased to find that not all of Chelsea is ‘made’ of brash cocktail-sipping, moneyed and rather dim young Sloanes (‘I don't think a Heffalump is a real animal. Is it?’ being a fine example of their intellect earlier this year).

So what is Baity Kitchen made of? Here is a rundown of the ingredients from our evening at Baity Kitchen:

One big waft of sweet and spicy smells
Two friendly staff to assist us with our gastronomic choice
One counter full of lush looking desserts
Three smart diners talking in hushed tones
One pretty outdoor terrace
One exotic menu featuring lamb kufta, poached wild salmon, stuffed wild vegetables with rice and Greek lasagne
A dash of food envy when the watermelon, feta and rocket salad arrives for my friend
Three glasses of Sauvignon Blanc
A couple of dozen turquoise chairs
A pair of big round skylights
Lots of candles and roses in bottles
2.5 conversations about Made in Chelsea
One 30-minute chat dissecting the housing market
A five second think about whether to have dessert
A 10-minute ‘I’m too full, I shouldn’t have had three courses, my belly hurts’ moan
Three repetitions of ‘thank you’ uttered as we depart the quiet cocoon that is Baity Kitchen and head out into the warm autumn night

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