27-29 Endell Street, London WC2 (020 7420 9300). Meal for two, including wine and service, £130
We had been at Circus a short while and had only just received our food – I use the term loosely – when a young woman in black bra, hot pants and fishnets came and danced by our table, with flames burning upon copper dishes laid upon her upheld palms. If only she'd tripped and set fire to the curtains. Apart from the fact that we might briefly have been able to glimpse what was on our plates through the Stygian gloom – what exactly were these ingredients, and what had they died of? – it would have brought the evening to an early close, which would have been a relief all round.
To be honest I was predisposed to hate Circus before a single piece of food had arrived. Then again sometimes taking an instant dislike to something can save time. It wasn't just that they did not return my phone call requesting a table – I'm waiting still – or that, booking online, they demanded a credit-card number. There was also the less-than-charming announcement as we arrived that we had to give the table back in two hours. Maybe the receptionists had tried the food and were trying to be kind.
It is not the concept of Circus I dislike. Dinner and a show is a great idea. You just have to do both bits well; here neither part of the equation works. This is not to reflect badly upon the performers, who give it their all, or would do if they were given enough time and space in which to do so. But Circus is a messy compromise, built around the need to keep moving the punters in and out, to keep hosing them down with over-sugary cocktails – think type 2 diabetes in a glass – and pelting them with over-priced platefuls of what might make great props in a freak show but, here, pass for main courses. The room is simply too small for the promise of the name to be realised.
During our meal, there was a chap who dangled gymnastically from a fold of cloth above the wide central table which doubles as a stage, while trying to keep his feet out of the salads, followed by the dancing girls with the flaming palms. There was also a woman who stripped rather briskly down to polka-dot pants and bra before removing the latter to reveal tasselled nipples. My companion had to take my word on this. A waiter obscured her view, while delivering main courses nobody could possibly have wanted. "Look," my friend said, "if someone's going to get their kit off the least she deserves is people being able to see." The upside of the four-minute performances is that when they start, shutters come down on the kitchen hatches, meaning that for a while no food can be delivered.
Ah yes, the food. Sticky concoctions, summoned from the gates of hell, or the kitchen, whichever is closer. It's the kind of thing you'd get at a Harvester, only with less subtlety and more cynicism. A sharing plate to start brought crappy deep-fried squid, really crappy chicken satay skewers with a sauce that made the word "suppurate" dance across my mind, a truly crappy hoisin duck salad, which amounted to hard, dry bits of meat hiding in a hedge, and astonishingly crappy deep-fried beef pasties. They used the word "empañadas" to describe these; I would use words that aren't allowed in a family newspaper.
The main courses both cost me around £23 and my innocence. Hard, dry duck confit laid on overcooked peas and mint in a sickly sweet Thai red curry sauce isn't just a bad idea or bad cooking. It's also really bad manners. Large scallops and prawns were grotesquely over-seasoned and served with a saffron and sour cream sauce that had the authentic tang of something with which you'd clean a bathroom sink in an attempt to hide bad smells. With the side dish of jalapeño onion rings we were back thinking about a Harvester and wishing we'd gone to one of those instead.
On the grounds that we'd suffered and spent enough, we decided to forgo dessert. In any case our time slot was up, though our waitress invited us to wait and watch the next act, a camp Elvis impersonator with lots of gold hula hoops, bigging up the gay subtext to Jailhouse Rock. He was good. And that's what is most depressing about the whole business. The staff really are doing their damnedest. They are giving it their all. They are friendly and charming and attentive. And they are also completely and utterly wasted.
Email Jay at jay.rayner@observer.co.uk or visit theguardian.com/profile/jayrayner for all his reviews in one place
