Fire cooked food that's flavourful and unintimidating

Time Out

3 days ago

Chef Yiannis Mexis's new Borough venture Pyro is a contemporary Greek restaurant that both defies and embraces neighbourhood taverna cliches. The food is hardly rustic simplicity or beholden to tradition, but it's rarely overly fiddly, and ultimately comes down to big flame-cooked flavours and robustly fresh ingredients.
Pyro has heavy beachside vibes, which is very bold in Southwark but it carries it off in large part because of its surprisingly enormous outdoor area. There is a fully indoor restaurant bit which I completely failed to go into, but is presumably the main focus of Pyro during the colder months. But when I visited at the tail end of a mini heatwave there was no question of going inside – we went for the covered section of the vast terrace, which basically isn't afraid to look like a giant straw-roofed beach hut.
That it doesn't fall over the precipice of novelty is due to the mostly excellent food. Seeking to bring the Aegean beach to the centre of London, you can drop a lot of money on seafood here: £85 for a whole 'flame kissed' lobster or £105 for a 1.5kg Cornish brill. But it's actually a fairly broad spectrum survey of Greek-influenced cuisine, and you don't have to spend big to get something nice. In fact the best thing we ate was quite possibly the £10 crudites platter. A world away from the sorry cucumber and carrot batons that blight every British childhood, this was a pristine plate of some of the freshest crunchiest vegetables I have ever had the pleasure to devour. From shimmering white radishes to chalky summer squash, everything was great, especially when dunked in a goopy/crunchy tarama and carob rusk dip.
There's a very short 'grazing' menu – we had everything on it just to be clear we hadn't missed anything. A spanakopita pastel del nada was basically a fun tart-style presentation of a classic spanakopita; mussel saganaki (a small fried appetiser) was a light, spicy trifle; intense little pork souvlaki skewers got us thoroughly warmed up for some heartier mains 'from the fire'.
The barbecued octopus had a lovely texture – the exact sweet spot between chewy and pliant – although the custardy, yellow split pea accompanying sauce was too rich and threatened to overwhelm. The soft but flavourful whole charred aubergine was much more like it, but the highlight was the side order of 'layered' potatoes. A sort of fantasy hybrid of classic roast potato and pommes anna, it consisted of layered cubes of spud, thinly crispy and lightly spiced on the outside, its inside softly concertina-ing at the press of a tongue on the inside. It was a taste sensation; it was a textural sensation – we ate them all and didn't really have room for any dessert afterwards (the dessert menu is small and while the blackcurrant and almond pie sounded nice it was £19 and apparently pretty huge).
Instead I turned to the extremely fun cocktail list, the creation of London-based Ukrainian mixologist Ana Reznik. I went for the Aegeas: the mix of olive oil–infused dry gin with seaweed and extra dry vermouth was weird in a good way, three warm currents of boozy brine gently percolating around each other.
Pyro is a good times eatery that serves high quality fire cooked food that's flavourful and unintimidating, influenced by the Med but not aiming to school you about the Med. If you're looking to wow a date with high concept dining it's probably not the place – but if you're looking for a relaxed summer night out, this is the one.
The vibe A chilled out terrace taverna in Southwark.
The drink A handful of Greek-hemed cocktails and plenty of Greek wine.