KOL Chef's Table – an unforgettable dining experience

This year, Santiago is launching a new chef’s table experience on the lower ground floor of his restaurant. For those averse to basement restaurant space, there's no need to worry. With its dark wooden double doors and concrete walls, high windows opening on to the street and a kitchen at the back, the Oaxaca-style dining room is elegantly welcoming. Guests are seated across a long dining table and can gain a behind-the-scenes understanding of the technique, produce and craftsmanship involved in creating new dishes for the restaurant. Most of the ingredients are sourced locally.

When I arrive on a cold January night, I am invited to share a table with three other guests and handed a warm and delicately flavoured seaweed broth with guajillo. It is the traditional welcome dish served in Mexican homes and it feels just perfect. Next is a ceviche-like dish of mackerel and rhubarb wonderfully paired with a buttery-tasting Riesling from Alsace. It's followed by Nicoatole, a savoury starter made of caviar and almond milk crème fraîche. My fellow guest marvels at the fully organic rosé from Montepulciano d’Abruzzo, with an intensely herbal note that works wonders with the Nicoatole.

Among the highlights of the tasting menu is the taco: a lobster preparation wrapped in tortillas made with sourdough and lobster coral and served with a fermented plum salsa. This dish alone makes the whole dining experience spectacular. The Mole, Santiago’s signature dish, doesn’t disappoint, but it is the carnitas that, for me, steal the show: pork belly cooked for 11 hours with perfectly crisp crackling served with a pickled gooseberry and onion salsa and a bean purée.

Dessert comes in the form of chestnut tamale or chestnut purée with a malted barley salsa served with delicately wrapped pumpkin and camomile vinegar preparation and a cold-brew mezcal glaze. It is a subtle finale.

'Everything we do at KOL is driven by purpose and passion,’ says Santiago. ‘Each supplier, craftsman and team member is chosen because of their story and because they share those values with us. After celebrating our first anniversary last year, I was looking for a way to bring these stories and passion to life, to a whole new level.'

A whole new level indeed! KOL is definitely worth the hype.

The ticketed experience can be booked here with January, February and March dates available now.
The Chef’s Table Experience begins at 6.30pm every Wednesday, Thursday & Friday
£145 per ticket
£115 optional wine pairing
(a discretionary service charge of 12.5% will be added to the bill)
9 Seymour Street, Marylebone, London W1H 7BA