This is not your typical restaurant. It’s been open for over 40 years and it still does not have a menu. You turn up (reservations are recommended), tell the chef what you don’t want to eat, and Hunan will do the rest. Such was the joy of eating here and the culinary artistry on display, it is little surprise that Hunan is still going strong.
Back in the day when your reviewer owned a Palm Pilot (I know, this shows my age), a former colleague kindly shared a list he had compiled on his device of restaurants in London where clients should be taken for lunching. Hunan featured on this, and it is both anomalous and lax the part of your author that it has taken him over 25 years to journey to Pimlico to experience the restaurant. Not much has changed in this time. There’s a beautiful front room looking out on to a street resplendent with art galleries and the like (avoid the backroom, which lacks light and is more cramped). The founder’s son now mans the kitchen, but the approach has changed not one jot.
Despite the venue’s name, the cooking at Hunan is less about food from this province of China, and rather shows more homage to Cantonese and Taiwanese styles of cooking. That said, chilli and the notoriously numbing Sichuan pepper are present, but can be dialled up or down depending on diners’ preferences. At lunch, guests can expect around a dozen miniature dishes, while at dinner, this figure increases by around 50%. There are also some pleasing constants. After a fiery appetiser of a soup, next up featured Hunan’s famous green beans (pictured, top right). Apparently, this dish has been the only one never to have left the menu in over 40 years of service. The chef calls them ‘chips’ but they are poles apart from the potato-based offering, fried here in the lightest of batters and coated artfully with garlic and chilli. Good went to better at Hunan. Among the most memorable of their offerings – beyond beans – were the venison, lamb and cuttlefish options. It was hard to recall any fails.
Although the dishes come when they are ready and so our meal flitted between feast and famine – either too much on the table or too little – at no stage did my dining comrade and I feel rushed. We spent a pleasant three hours at Hunan, helped along by a couple of good bottles of wine. The list is thoughtfully composed with some interesting options from across the world, most notably Germany and South Africa. At c£60/head for the lunch experience (and £90 at night), pre-drinks, this is money well spent. Based on our visit, Hunan should be serving up surprises for at least another 40 years.