Archipelago

Archipelago begins with a password, an indigenous-styled menu and a room that feels eclectic, unusual and slightly too quiet. It is a restaurant built around curiosity rather than conventional fine-dining polish, and the friendliness of the service is important to that distinction. The team keeps the evening comfortable and funny, while the setting gives the meal an immediate sense of story. A Bloody Mary, particularly the jellied version served in celery, is an excellent opening: strange enough to make the point, enjoyable enough to keep the table on side.

The menu then travels well beyond the familiar. Zebra jerky and jerk seafood make a cautious beginning, before smoky python carpaccio, crickets, crocodile curry, ostrich flank steak, alpaca and kangaroo skewers turn the meal into a conversation as much as a sequence of courses. Some of the insects are deliberately challenging, but the stronger dishes are genuinely persuasive: the python is lovely, the crocodile curry is very good and the ostrich is described without hesitation as stunning. Even the Caesar salad becomes part of the restaurant’s game once ants and bug pupae arrive alongside it.

Dessert restores a gentler register. The Mediaeval Hive is gorgeous, while Pharaoh’s Treasure and the Ghanaian Mule with carrot purée provide a sweet, imaginative finish before whisky and green tea. Archipelago is not trying to compete with a Michelin-starred restaurant on conventional terms, and that is the useful context for its 28.5. Its achievement is experiential: a warm, memorable meal that asks diners to bring an open mind and rewards them with stories to retell. Come for the culture, the conversation and the willingness to taste somewhere unfamiliar.