A hip place in Covent Garden. We were a little early, and while waiting had a good overview of the place: A big kitchen area in the middle, with a coal fire, and around that a horseshoe of bar stools.

We started our meal with a naan, made right in front of us in a tandoori from a bundle of though. It was fluffy and crispy, and the cod's roe with spring onions was an excellent dip.

After this followed the starters, a trio of croquettes, with a dip. It's a weird number for a sharing-style restaurant catering for mostly couples.

For our mains, we shared a mushroom kebab, coffee rubbed chicken, and a poached and grilled trout. The Mushroom kebab was underwhelming, and the portion size was small. The trout was still very moist, and the crisply skin added flavour; some pickled meaty tomatoes and onion slices accompanied it. Our favourite was the coffee rub chicken. Moist, juicy, and with a proper splash of heat from the topping and tasty pickled courgette.

We enjoyed the atmosphere was good, even though it was fairly noisy. But it wasn't so bad so we could not near each other. The flames from the grill made it on the warmer side — we were seated less than 3 metres from it. The extraction was excellent and hence it wasn't smokey — not even when one of the chefs refilled the fuel.

The downside of the Barbary were the cramped seating arrangements with fixed backless bar stools by the counter. Long legs made it necessary to man-spread, which isn't great for the unknown customers sitting next to you having to do the same. The restaurant is also not accessible, but this is made clear on their website when you use their booking tool. There is a terrace across/around the corner which would be better for seating, but it was too cold for that to be pleasant.