Hump Day for me recently ended with a hell of a bang when I visited supper club pop up An Evening of Meat, at The Vaults in Waterloo. I had no idea of what to expect, except that it was an immersive dining experience directed by Kate March with an all female cast and food by Michelin trained Chavdar Todorov. All sounded promising and I headed into The Vaults, a quirky pop up, bar and theatre venue, to get my meat on!
I was ushered down a dark corridor into a rather intriguing bar filled with…well…provocative art, to say the least. At this point the penny dropped as to what was coming later! Tickets to the pop up include a drink in the bar, so I filled up and admired the view while we waited for dinner to begin.
When all the attendees had arrived and were watered, a host appeared and started calling guests out of the bar by name. This was an unusual touch – normally at pop ups it's a bit of a free for all with where you sit, but here it was more structured. We were taken upstairs into an atmospheric vaults space with two long tables and….. 4 barely dressed women lying down on top of them!!!
The women were lying perfectly still which was quite the eery thing at first! Surreal, certainly. This went on for a bit until some loud music kicked in and all the women popped up suddenly and began their performance….
…How to describe the performance? Powerful, beautiful and at times uncomfortable, probably comes close to describing it. I can't call it all dancing, although there was certainly parts of it that had just that, or theatre, as there wasn't speech. The women essentially performed all throughout the meal with a combination of dance, choreographed moves and audience interaction. It wasn't sexy and was quite the opposite at times; if you pressed me on what the whole thing was about, I'd say that they seemed to act out the every day pains and frustrations of being a woman in today's world.
Whilst all this was going on, there was also the food! It was a six course menu, unsurprisingly centered around meat! We began with chicken liver parfait in a cone, followed closely by delicious salt baked potatoes, yeast beurre noisette and crispy pancetta. This was followed by dry aged beef carpaccio, mutton shoulder, pigs cheeks and a fabulous chocolate ganache dessert. The latter took me aback at first when it arrived served in an ashtray (we want plates!) but after some small bemusement and a spoonful of gorgeous pudding, I was sold.
All in all, it was a magical evening full of fabulous food, thought provoking entertainment and more than a few surprises. It's running until the 2nd of June so snap up the last few tickets pronto!!!! They're £35 and well worth it.
