Roe doesn’t bother with cosy. It trades in cool marine tones and clean edges. There are marble tables, pools of lamplight, and – if you catch the right angle – an aeroponic garden glowing green above the stairwell. A vast, deep-gilled tree-like sculpture bisects the space, studded with red coral, and the whole 500-cover operation hums around it.
The power plant of the space, though, is the open kitchen: a lengthy runway bookended by a pizza oven on one side, and a bar at the other. Here, the Roe team, led by chefs Will Murray and Jack Croft, champion a low-waste, high-quality ethos with the same keen attention to detail and out-of-the-box thinking that makes Fallow a London icon.
A transplant from St James’s, the mushroom parfait opens proceedings with a bang. As we’re busy scraping up silky, brandy rich parfait onto charred sourdough, Wildfarmed flatbread turns up. Laden with creamy Tunworth, pumpkin, honey and sage, and matched with a few slices of pear, it’s a fluffy mess of measured sweetness, raw pumpkin crunch and soft cheesiness.
Elsewhere, stuffed chicken wings offer a crisp, glassy shell but don’t quite deliver the punch the filling promises. No matter, Szechuan salt and a slick of spicy-sweet sauce more than compensate. There are no such reservations with a Wagyu steak: 35 days aged, grilled to perfection, and served with a harissa-walnut dip. That dip reads a little bizarre but turns out to be the cleverest thing on the plate: a nutty and aromatic counterpoint for thick, juicy cuts of marbled beef.
Even the sprouts earn their keep, charred and dripping with housemade sriracha we forget, however briefly, that they’re sprouts at all. Mash too is addictive; a silky butter-rich reserve topped with crunchy pomme paille, shavings of black truffle, and pools of brown butter gravy.
For dessert, we opt for the unmissable caramelised banana parfait. Shaped like the fruit, it conceals a channel of banana jam, and arrives with a glossy rum caramel, and nutty banana ice cream. And the kicker: glassy strips of macerated banana skin, fried til toasty and bitter. It underscores the waste-nothing brilliance that has, quite rightly, catapulted the Fallow team to viral fame.
The hype tracks. Yes, Roe is enormous. Yes, it reflects its city-slicker surroundings. And yes, the drinks list will test your expense account. But spend more than fifteen minutes here and any suspicion of soullessness evaporates. The team is warm, the cooking is pleasure-first, and there’s so much to come back for.