Places To Eat In London: The Fable, The City

An alternative title to this post could be ‘the time that Izy and I spend just over 7 hours sitting in a pretty awesome restaurant called The Fable in the bit between St. Paul’s and Chancery Lane’. Izy being the wonderful and super talented photographer and maker of all things sweet behind the blog Top With Cinnamon. If you’re not already reading her blog, there is something wrong with you. Anyway, so what started off as a pretty normal Saturday brunch to talk the business of food blogging over a full English, waffles, a Bloody Mary and a latte turned into some fantastic mojitos and a great duck flatbread. I love Bank Holidays.

The Fable is the newest, fantastically fairytale themed restaurant and bar from Drake & Morgan, the guys behind The Drift which was my first stop in London last year when I returned to England. I did not realise thus at the time, but while I was there I was making parallels between the food and atmosphere between the two in my head, thinking that in The Fable I’d found yet another great Summer City spot to hang out with my girlfriends for snacks and cocktails. They’re both keepers. Drake & Morgan also own The Refinery, The Parlour, The Anthologist, The Folly and The Happenstance. They all have the same menu as far as I can tell from their websites, but it is good to know where each of them are if I happen to be in the area! 

Their menu claimed that their ‘Bloody Detective’ Bloody Mary was the best in town. So, naturally as in my book it is not a Saturday or Sunday morning in London until I’ve had a Bloody Mary, I had to test their claim. And do you know what? it was pretty damn good. The right balance of sweet, sour and spicy, while still being able to taste the tomato juice, something I’ve been missing in a lot of Bloody Mary’s recently. And I really love how they served it over crushed ice like a Mojito, so that I did not end up slurping it up in 5 minutes flat. Here’s looking at you Beagle. 

However, if you are particular about your Bloody Mary mix, all of Drake & Morgan’s bars have something that make for the perfect Saturday morning; a build your own Bloody Mary bar. Need I say no more? Also, they have all the weekend papers spread out for you to read. Which is nice, because they really do let you linger for a while. As in, they did not kick us out after 7 hours, though the place was not at all busy. So much better than a crowded pub at the weekend. 

Izy went for the waffles with berries and syrup, which looked fantastic, and gained a stupid amount of love on her Instagram feed. Us being bloggers, we had to take loads of photos of the food, and we were both rather enamoured by the little bottle her syrup came in. We wanted so much of our crockery for props.

I was a very, very hungry customer so I went for their London Market Breakfast, which included two fried eggs, smoky beans, a roasted plum tomato, bacon, sausages, steak, mushroom, black pudding, hash browns, fried bread and because as well as a Bloody Mary I don’t feel brunch is brunch without there being avocado present, I had half a smashed one on the side. 

There were some very good elements of my breakfast, but a few I was disappointed in. Maybe if we’d just stayed at The Fable for brunch as we’d originally planned my review might not be so shiny, but it was still a good meal. My avocado was perfect, the mushroom so delicious and full of flavour, and the eggs were perfectly cooked. I want to know where they get their sausages from because they were amazing, and I don’t usually like fried bread, and while I only ate one slice it was not as greasy as I usually found it. The big disappointments were the beans and the steak. While the menu pointed towards ‘smoky’ beans, I could not tell the taste difference from regular Heinz. (My favourite homemade baked beans in London are at Recipease in Notting Hill, in case you were wondering) My steak was far too dry for me an I could not finish it, but then again I like my steak very rare and this piece was very well done and barely pink in the middle at all. I wish they’d asked me how I liked it cooked, so if you order the London Market Breakfast or the Breakfast Steak & Eggs, be sure to specify how you like yours done. 

After a few hours chatting about our favourite blogs and all the technical stuff about the web hosts and cameras we use to shoot, and about Izy’s upcoming book this Autumn that I’m now stupidly excited about, the cocktail menu on the table became too much of a temptation for us, and after an awful lot of deliberation Izy went for a Mango Mojito, and I had the Strawberry Lavender version. They were among some of the very best Mojitos I’ve ever tasted. They’re something I’m usually carful about ordering as I usually find them so watery, but these were packed full of fresh flavour right down to the end, and also looked cute in their jars, and with the dried lavender sprigs poking out of mine. A lot of other people were ordering them too, which is also a good sign. Seriously, I might just start calling these my favourite Mojitos in London, and I’d recommend The Fable for them alone. 

Now, I don’t usually include photos of restaurant bathrooms in my posts, but The Fable has something special. Like the rest of the restaurant, and the bar upstairs the whole thing is fairytale themed, and I love that they have both fun and inspirational quotes, and recipes for cocktails from their menu written on their mirrors. Shame the Mojito’s are not there, really! I feel that there is a Lemon Meringue Ramos Gin Fizz and a White Wine & Grapes cocktail in my near future.  

People at other tables were getting food (Crispy Aromatic Duck and Pancakes, Chicken Wings and Chips in a mini picnic basket) which all smelt amazing, so we ended up pinching a daytime menu and ordering something to share before heading home in the early evening sunshine. We finally settled on the Peking Duck Flatbread. The flatbread was nice and crisp, rolled in chilli flakes to add an extra hit, and while we both got very messy with it (this is not date food!) the topping was equally delicious. The duck pieces were both sweet and succulent, and nice and crispy, and the vegetable mix was both crunchy and refreshing. To top it all off our bill came with a packet of wildflower seeds to take home and plant for each of us.

The Fable is a great place for a lazy weekend breakfast/ brunch/ lunch and cocktails at the weekend when it is quiet so you can just sit there for hours, but if you have a special dinner, I also think the seating nook surrounded with books that I pictured would be great to book out for a celebration. Enjoy a lovely and whimsical oasis in the middle of usually busy London. I was getting some great cocktail recommendations on Instagram, but for those of you who have not been to The Fable before, this is my start of the Summer gift to you all. Enjoy!

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