Lucky Seven: Review

Review Lucky 7
127 Westbourne Park Road, W2 5QL.
Big Breakfast for Two, £25


This unique little American Diner gives the distinct impression that some time ago now it was hovered up from a small town near Memphis, Tennessee in the 1950’s, taken up into the cosmos for a few years and then dropped, just be chance, smack bang, in the middle of trendy Westbourne Grove, London in the 2000s. Even the waiter has the illustratable air of an undiscovered young Buddy Holly as he cheerfully takes our order.
This is morning after food at its lip-smacking best, the blueberry pancakes are without doubt the best in London and of course I can’t finish the portion they gave me, which makes it all the more an American experience. Get a milkshake between two, they come in huge tin buckets and actually taste like the flavour you ask for, which is a hard thing to come across these days.
My friend has the Mexican burger, which in his own words is a ‘giant chilli and cheese meat-lovers ecstasy tablet.’ Even some of my American friends regard these burgers as ‘better than you get back home.’ Now that’s when you know an American diner is doing well in London, when the Americans come to feast.
One the most extraordinary things about this little juke box of a restaurant, started by Tomas Conran, Terence’s son, is that it verifiably makes American nosh cool again. You can hear yourself saying “fancy American?” on a Sunday morning twice a month and meaning it rather than meaning ‘fancy a greasy dead battered chicken limb from end of road.’
You can actually spend too much time here sat upon the red leather booth seats and aluminium napkin blocks, staring wantonly up at boxes upon boxes of Lucky Charms, which for all who don’t know is a brand of American cereal made mostly from marshmallow. Among them are all the small things that make this place a real trendy little haunt. The snooker ball handles on the loo door, the huge jar of maple syrup on every table, the butter pack, the neon logos and the smell of buttermilk pancakes. If you don’t like it you probably read it is a legacy of the Conran family and were expecting a Blueprint Café or Guaglino‘s, well don’t. This is Terence Conran being fun-loving, liberal, friendly and a bit pissed -Tom Conran has a good thing going.
And if nothing else it’s fun to watch the old English gentleman with his shocked face when he sees the old tin sign that reads ‘We have a booth sharing policy’ as four teenage girls climb in along side him, because ‘frankly’ he’d ‘rather they sit somewhere else’.