Hoppers St Christopher's Place

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We’re giving Pancake Day a Sri Lankan twist this year – Join us on Tuesday 13th February, where we will be serving a Jaggery Milk Hopper at both Soho and St. Christopher’s place, for one day only.

This unique dessert is created with our Hopper recipe, garnished with Jaggery & Coconut Cream and is a great alternative to your traditional pancake.

If you can’t make it into Hoppers on the day, make sure to download our Jaggery Milk Hopper recipe and try it out for yourself at home.

https://www.hopperslondon.com

On the table: Hoppers, St Christopher's Place, Marylebone

The original Hoppers, on Frith Street, has arguably done more for Sri Lankan cuisine in the capital in the two years since it first opened than has been done in, well, ever.

Popular throughout South Asia, the humble dosa is a sort of light, savoury crêpe made using rice and black gram (a kind of lentil) – but, perhaps more importantly, it’s gluten free.

Hoppers, from which these restaurants take their name, are even lighter, and even more gluten free… well, sort of.

Completing the “shorts” category are mutton rolls – spicy meaty croquettes bursting with minced sheep – and devilled chipirones, squid battered in a mixture of Sri Lankan spices and topped with roughly-chopped green chillies.

Of all the new wave of restaurants serving up “posher” South Asian food, Hoppers is definitely going its own way.

Hoppers review – Sri Lankan restaurant sequel finally takes ...

The Euro Hedgie, my dining companion for this first meal and new to Sri Lankan cuisine, was immediately taken with the vegetable kothu roti – as was I. Feathery soft bits of chopped roti came mixed together with slithers of bitter cabbage, and a crisp, sharp and zingy melange of coriander, red onions and spring onions.

The musky, earthy and peppery dry rub was sumptuous, although the sharp radishes and soft baby potatoes seemed a little out of place despite being perfectly good in their own right.

String hoppers, the bohemian devil-may-care cousin of noodles, were soft and moreish whether topped with a surprisingly refreshing coconut-based dipping curry or a coconut-based sambol which bore a faint resemblance to cheese.

To say that I deeply pine for the now-departed dessert menu at the original Soho Hoppers is like saying pub floors are a bit sticky.

The soft, short pieces of string hopper, curry powder-like flavouring, respectably decent prawns and assortment of veg were the least interesting parts of this dish.

RESTAURANT REVIEW: HOPPERS, ST. CHRISTOPHER'S PLACE ...

The list of places under their stewardship reads like your Instagram Explore highlights reel; there’s Bao, Gymkhana, Lyles, Trishna, Bubbledogs and Kitchen Table, Xu, Sabor (shortly to open) and of course, Hoppers.

Hoppers St. Christopher’s continues the rich run of form so popular at Frith Street and doesn’t mess with the formula; Sri Lankan curries, dosas, the hopper itself (a kind of pancake) and more – all of exotic, heady, just-off-centre spicing and playful delivery.

Tables are crowded with little copper pots of vibrant coloured dips, new dishes to the party call for a game of tetris to fit them in, and the expansive nature of the dosas seemingly pokes fun at the general lack of elbow room.

A holy trinity of hopper, varuval and the aforementioned squid would be a superb meal in itself, even before the accompanying dips brighten up the table and pique the palate’s curiosity.

The volume of the queue at Hoppers Frith Street was, for a while, in danger of drowning out the praise surrounding the food inside.

Hoppers St. Christopher's Place: Review

So, what Polpo did for the Venetian Bacaro and Dishoom did for the Bombay Irani café, Hoppers did for Sri Lankan food — funked it up and served it with style and at a remarkably egalitarian price point.

The menu is still an irresistible dance through exciting Sri Lankan specialities such as black pork ribs, banana leaf roasted bream and Jaffna lamb chops; service is still blindingly charming and efficient; and it’s to be enjoyed in a plush-but-characterful space, all dark polished booths and backlighting.

Also, the slightly expanded menu has allowed for a mini tasting menu of sorts, a “feast” to be taken by the whole table, which includes more food than you’d ever reasonably want to eat for a very equitable £28.50 per head.

Included in said feast, Sri Lankan classics such as these mutton rolls and hot sauce: crisp, dry-fried tubes of gamey meat, to be dunked in a hot tomato-chilli sauce… …’hot butter devilled chipirones’: one of the more charming new dishes, dainty baby squid, coated in a crisp batter of rewarding complex spices… …the famous bonemarrow varuval: huge pieces of jellified offal soaked in a rich curry, presented with a fresh roti so buttery and light it was like eating a flattened croissant… …and lamb kothu roti: a bowl of minced lamb, fluffy pieces of fresh roti and bouncy scrambled egg topped with fresh coriander, a satisfying and comforting thing.

While all the above was still resting in our stomachs, the ‘main courses’ arrived: warm hoppers (a kind of bowl-shaped fermented Sri Lankan pancake, in case this is all new to you) with dense, satisfying chicken curry (sorry, ‘kari’) and flaky dosas paired with a tomato-chilli kari groaning with vast, meaty prawns.

Hoppers St. Christopher's Place

Hoppers are famous for their namesake dish, the hopper, which is a bowl-shaped pancake made from fermented rice batter and coconut milk.

The interior design has been inspired by the Jungle Modernist movement associated with Geoffrey Bawa, considered the most influential Sri Lankan architect.

There will be plenty of those hoppers, of course, along with the popular dosa, made with a batter of fermented ground rice and lentils and served with a variety of karis (curries) to scoop up, including lamb shank, aubergine, prawn and cauliflower.

Called ‘rice and roast’, these are served family style for sharing and include banana leaf-roasted plaice, green mango and Madras onion sambol (a relish), chicken buriani, chicken heart achuru and yoghurt, and Jaffna lamb cutlets with cucumber mooli sambol.

Cocktails are a big thing here, focusing on two main drinks — Arrack, which is a Sri Lankan spirit distilled from the sap of coconut flowers, and the Dutch spirit Genever, which is a juniper and spice flavoured spirit (an earlier form of gin).

Restaurant Review: Hoppers, St Christopher's Place

When Hoppers opened in 2015, the tiny Sri Lankan restaurant became an instant success.

Also new to the St. Christopher’s Place restaurant, a ‘Taste of Hoppers’ menu is available alongside the a la carte offering, highlighting an ample repertoire of ‘favourites’ (£28.50, per person).

The flavour of bone marrow gets lost in the sauce, but the texture contributes to a soothing decadence, enchanting mopped with buttery roti – like a flattened croissant – unsurprisingly adored as one of Hoppers’ greatest hits.

Hoppers’ namesake dish is available with the ‘main course’, the deep pancake is moulded into a bowl, crafted with fermented rice batter and coconut milk.

From the ‘Taste of Hoppers’ menu, the ‘Short Eats’ deliver (yes I know it’s a deplorable term), but it’s the karis with their pungent, aromatic sauces that resonate.

Hoppers | Restaurants in Marylebone, London

A second branch of Hoppers, on Marylebone’s Wigmore Street.

Hurrah, some of you will cry: a Hoppers for grown-ups.

The wait, we’re told, is up to 90 minutes.

Yet the bone marrow varuval is sweeter and, bizarrely, wetter than when it was first launched.

As we left, we spied ‘queen of curries’ Madhur Jaffrey at a table in the corner.