There was a time when small plates reigned supreme. Little ceramic dishes displaying ornate arrangements of seasonal veg, shiny squares of ravioli, and blobs of burrata had Londoners at their mercy. We nodded along to waiters explaining how to order ‘two to three dishes per person’ as if we’d never encountered it before, then carried out the delicate operation of moving crockery up, down and side to side to ensure everyone got a bit of everything. That’s not to mention ultimately spending more money than if everyone had just ordered their own plate of food.
Diners were fed up with the rigmorale. By the end of last year, the capital had reached peak small plate fatigue. ‘Grow up and give me a pie,’ Dalston drag queen Johnny Woo wrote in the Guardian in December. ‘This type of eating is no longer radical,’ Peter Harden (of foodie bible Harden’s Guide) said to the Independent. For restaurants, one response was to replace a long menu of small plates with one full of big, decadent plates. But, there’s another sort of bitesize dish that seems to be making a comeback in place of the bemoaned small plate: the bar snack.
What the hell is the difference, you ask? To me ‘small plate’ connotes sophistication, creative combinations and culinary skill. Bar snacks, on the other hand, are simple, comforting stodge built to keep punters thirsty for more pints. Traditionally they boil down to a dozen or so staples – Welsh rarebit, pints of prawns, pickled eggs, sausage rolls, that sort of stuff. A decade ago we said that ‘London’s top bars and pubs have upped their game to include twists on the classic pork pies and Scotch eggs, as well as exciting small plates’. But those small plates don’t bring the same level of excitement anymore and bar snacks are back in their purest form.
Old-school renaissance
As you’d expect, pubs are at the forefront of the snacks’ return. At these places food has always been secondary to drinks and the menu has always been low-key. But boozers with garish carpets and minimal food have found a new, enthusiastic audience in Gen Z, and several new openings are trying to emulate their appeal.
The Robin, which launched in Crouch Hill in 2023, has an uber-simple lineup of snacks consisting of pickled eggs, salami sticks, Scotch eggs, sausage rolls and pork pies. The Pocket, which came to Islington last year, also keeps things simple and runs a strict ‘no green food’ rule. Owner Pete Holt (who also runs the Southampton Arms in Kentish Town) told us: ‘Some pub meals cost £25 these days, you need to sit down, wait for the food to come, use both arms to eat it, wait for the bill etc. It’s annoying, inefficient and expensive.’
Fancier gastropubs are following suit. There’s oysters and mince on toast at the posh Pelican in Notting Hill, battered cockles at Rake at The Compton Arms, and a fish finger roll at The Hero.
Viral Soho gastro The Devonshire’s bar menu offers a £2 sausage on a stick alongside bacon sarnies and cheese and ham toasties. In April this year, the team behind Papi swapped sharing plates for trad dishes and salty snacks with the opening of The Golden Tooth. There are Taytos behind the bar and a snack menu of oysters, chips with wild garlic aioli, and cheese and pickle sandwiches.
Tom Noest opened The Hawthorn in Shepherd’s Bush last year. Its bar snack menu follows British tradition. ‘Naturally when you drink, you get a bit peckish,’ he says. ‘A Scotch egg or rarebit is a nice middle ground between a pack of Scampi Fries and a full plate of fish and chips.’
He tells me that the bar snacks go down a lot better at the Hawthorn than at his outposts in the Cotswolds, where people want proper sit-down meals. ‘The drinking culture in London is a lot more pronounced. The bar is two thirds of the whole pub. In the restaurant we’ll have five to 10 people on a Friday night, but here we’ll have 40 people drinking and all eating bar snacks, which is great. It’s so easy.’
He adds that spontaneity is also part of bar snacks’ appeal. ‘You walk up to the bar, you get your pints then you think “oh fuck it, let’s get a Scotch egg”,’ says Noest.
Low-brow, high-brow
The appetite for proper pubs and their traditional fare is widening into wine and cocktail bars, too. At Caviar House & Prunier in Piccadilly, you’ll find what they claim is London’s poshest bar snack – a bowl of handcooked crisps and a tin of caviar. At Lyaness cocktail bar, you can order tater tots and a mushroom sausage roll to go with your negroni.
Take a seat at Three Sheets Soho and pair a martini with a chip butty, which originated as a staff meal but was so beloved they put it on the menu. Classier small plates like scallop crudo and steak tartare are still options but head chef Ethan Pack says snacks that are snappy, simple and ‘don’t need much of an explanation’ is part of an effort to create a menu that’s ‘accessible to everyone’.
Ethan adds that ‘a lot of the dishes on the menu are just about nostalgia, stuff based on what you remember eating as a kid.’
Meanwhile, in bougie Belgravia, Bar Flor’s pièce de résistance is its calamari sandwich which, in Madrid, is a working-class staple. ‘Sometimes you need a booze soaker-upper and this is just that,’ chef Aaron Potter says. ‘It’s important for me that you get your food quickly in a bar. The last thing I want to see is an empty glass by the time the food goes down. Serving something substantial in a bar is also important. It means you can spend an evening in a bar and not worry about not eating enough.’
The bar snack resurrection coincides with London’s craving for no-nonsense meals and proper pubs. Punters want authenticity, reliability and something gloriously salty and stodgy to help us move on from one pint (or martini) to the next.
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