Dining Out 041: Silk Road
Dinner in Camberwell.
If you too are feeling the cold and everything that comes with it – back to work blues, attempting and failing Dry Jan, “do you think we can have the heating on for a bit?” – then my recommendation is this: four or five of your mates, most of whom are showing up half cut, a couple of bottles of cheap wine, and a reservation at Silk Road on Camberwell Church Street.
Nobody reading this needs to be told that Silk Road is basically as steeped in south London legend as like, Skehan’s or Nunhead Elvis. I moved to London almost ten years ago, and for that entire time, Silk Road has been held up as a gold standard of Xinjiang cuisine in the capital, way transcending local “if you know you know” status, and more just considered an actual destination-type restaurant. Last year, it reopened in a bigger space right next to the OG spot, to accommodate its rampant popularity, and on Saturday, I finally went to the new venue for the first time.
Happily, the measured chaos of the original reigns. Plates come out whenever the kitchen feels like it, just as they used to when the place was less than half the size, the room is loud, the portions are massive, and the flavours still absolutely bang. Noodle dishes – hand-pulled; Silk Road’s speciality for good reason – are served in big, deep bowls filled with spicy, sweet broth that you can’t help but slurp (I did this so enthusiastically at one point that I got it in my eye and had to rapidly administer some blue roll), aubergine cooked with tomato and chilli is more addictive than a watermelon Elf Bar, and corkage is £8. You would honestly struggle to not have a good time.
Beyond the fact that it was always going to be extremely tasty, I think one of the reasons I enjoyed this particular meal was that the lively Saturday energy of the restaurant kind of matched that of our actual night. It was spontaneous; one of those “I love it when a plan comes together” moments where everyone just happens to be free and looking for something to get up to, an original reservation for three growing over the course of the evening to accommodate more people who fancied it.
My friends Imo, Elise and I had met a little while before dinner to have a couple of drinks while yelling across a table at each other (they do a nice Negroni at Veraison Wines in Camberwell, FYI), and then we ambled along in the pissing rain down to the restaurant, where Jesse and Mick met us, for our 8:30PM table. The mood of the meal (“ridiculous”) was established pretty immediately when Elise opened a bottle of €7 wine, procured on her Christmas visit to family in France, and it frothed up and went everywhere like she’d just won the Formula 1. It kind of set the tone for one of those meals where everyone is sloshing their drinks around and sharing food and talking over one another, which I think is a very fun way to eat.
In terms of our actual order, between five of us, we had a noodle dish each, plus a few extras. There was that chunky, spicy, but somehow completely not-overly-oily aubergine situation I mentioned earlier (which, for me, was the absolute move; next time I go to Silk Road, I’m straight up just ordering that with a portion of noodles and ascending accordingly), plus a plate of cold, shredded chicken that managed to lock in an almost obscene amount of moisture to start. Then, there was another plate of cute little egg, shrimp and leek dumplings, curled in on each other like sleeping Labrador puppies, and finally, a skewer each. These were cooked over hot coals and served on gnarly metal spikes: I went for juicy red bream, but there were king prawns and lamb kidneys on the table too – the most expensive of these was only £3.30.
When it came to my personal noodle choice, I went for the menu item called Luxury Noodle, because, of course, when “Luxury Noodle” is on the menu, why the hell would I order anything else? This consisted of noodles in that spicy half-sauce half-broth concoction, with onions, cabbage, medium-rare lamb pieces and a double-cooked fried egg. It was brilliant – the liquid in the bowl was hot with chilli but sweet with tomato, which is one of my favourite combinations, the lamb was tender, and you know that fried egg still had a runny yolk. It was comfort food, basically, shared in the best way: with some gobby pals on a freezing cold night in Camberwell.
I was pleased, also, that the new version of Silk Road absolutely lived up to my memories of the old one. I think the bigger restaurant fits the frenetic, zingy boldness of the food more, and it encourages that in its diners too, which is always a good thing. Ultimately, the place is a true classic – you know what you’re getting with Silk Road, but happily, that means a massive laugh, soup in your eye, and some next-level noodles.
(Also, just to add: a reasonably important point. We paid £23.50 a head between five of us, so even if, like me, your post-Christmas wallet is feeling Depleted To Say The Bloody Least, maybe this is good inspo for a guaranteed cheap and delicious evening out during the most evil month of the year.)
Dining Out is written by Lauren O’Neill and illustrated by Lucy Letherland. Weekly reviews are free to read every Thursday, and you can follow us on Instagram here, but if you’d like to see more, you can subscribe for £5 a month or £50 a year, to get extra content every second Sunday.
Click below to see paid and free subscription options, and thanks very much for reading.