FOWL, Piccadilly Circus

Skip The Nonsense

FOWL. No I’m not talking about watery gravy – FOWL is the name of the restaurant for this week’s adventure, near to Piccadilly Circus.

Do you want to play a game of fowl or foul?

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FOUL.

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FOWL…ER.

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FOUL.

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FOWL.

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FOUL. I mean, is there really any chicken inside a chicken nugget?

Tell me that’s the highlight of your week so far.

Vinnie Jones

I like to plan my life in advance, if you live in London you probably know what I mean – message a friend to arrange a catch-up and you manage to find an hour, one Tuesday evening two months away, which you can both make.

Most of my Sundays are booked a few weeks in advance, but this Sunday wasn’t…and I didn’t know what to do.

I thought about doing one of the roasts that have been on the to-do list the longest. The Marksman has been on there since I started the blog, but is for two people sharing, The Camberwell Arms is booked up weeks in advance, The Prospect Of Whitby is a future Halloween special maybe, The Ned is like £100 for a roast and not really solo dining territory…I kind of gave up thinking.

Then, two days before, I span the random number generator and it chose the most recently added place, FOWL – their caps lock but I’ll FUCKING allow it. Sorry, how foul of me.

Yeah that might be FOUL also.

FOWL is a chicken-focused restaurant near Piccadilly Circus, owned by the same group that run Fallow and Roe – two restaurants with very good roast dinners, if replete with pontificatingly watery gravy.

As soon as I noted that you could book a table outside I was sold, helped that it was forecast to be a balmy 18’C and the first day for 6 months that I’ve been able to go outside without a coat – I felt so naked.

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Not quite that naked though. Encule Nazis.

Sergio Ramos

It being a chicken-focused restaurant, there was only one thing on the roast dinner menu.

Mushrooms.

A ha ha ha I’m so funny. Though not quite as funny as a Tesla being vandalised.

Or the Tesla stock price being down 47%. Now that’s really quite funny. Fuck around, find out, Musky.

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Oh yeah, the menu. I’ve been quite unpolitical this week for my standards though, right?

So the menu had chicken or chicken. Though to be clear, just one type of chicken at £24.00, or a maitake mushroom mystery thing at £24.00 which might be vegetarian, or it might be vegan. Or both.

I’ve already had a vegetarian roast dinner in 2025 (albeit with a side of chicken leg) so I went for the chicken.

Gennaro Gattuso

Frustratingly a table in the sun came available just at the same point as my roast arrived, just as I was thinking whether it is socially acceptable to change the table I’m sat on at a restaurant without it looking too un-British.

But I’m sure we’ll have plenty more warm and sunny Sundays to come in 2025. Won’t we?

Starting with…the sprouts. Whoa no carrots. Both Fallow and Roe had a very strong vegetable game, and FOWL followed in their footsteps.

The sprouts were nicely roasted, a little bit of crunch but soft enough.

Did you think the hottest new trend for 2025 was the Nazi salute? Well, seemingly you are wrong, because last week I had deep-fried parsnips for the first time ever, and this week I had deep-fried parsnips for the second time ever. Maybe their chef reads this blog? Gravy ain’t watery either…just saying. Someone in the industry must read this shit occasionally.

So they were rather on the crispy side, a slight hint of spice, with more battered coating than actual parsnip, yet still very enjoyable and just a little bit wrong.

As opposed to Agent Krasnov being funded by Russia which is totally not wrong at all.

Fernandinho

Two weeks in a row I’ve had crispy roast potatoes – is this the Golden Age that we were promised?

Perfect? Not quite, they had been cooked a little time before but it was only slightly noticeable, otherwise they were pretty crispy on the outside, pretty soft inside and…wait until you hear this…there were 4 of them.

Alas the Yorkshire pudding was the most pointless over-sized lump of dried batter I’ve been served in a while.

On the bright side it wasn’t burnt, but instead it was cold and dried-out. If chefs cannot be arsed to make Yorkshire puddings on the same day then at least please make mercifully small yorkies – I hate wasting food, but eating this humongous lump of dried batter would have been a waste of my jaw.

Thankfully for a chicken restaurant, the chicken was pretty ace. Plump, juicy and plentiful, the drumstick was a tad tough and I’d prefer the skin crispy, but there was easily more joy than jank here. If you are wondering what a Sutton Hoo chicken is, as I did, it is the name of a farm – and also site of two Anglo-Saxon cemeteries dating from the 6th to 7th centuries.

Finally we had actual gravy. I did get a little tired of it towards the end of the meal as it had Asian tones to it – either that or it was my imagination, which cannot ever be ruled out. Hoisin or soy sauce perhaps mixed in…you’d have to ask the chef, but it was on the hint side, and far preferable to watery wank that so many restaurants and pubs pass off for gravy.

FOWL

Pretty happy days again in the roast dinner world. How strange.

NOT A FOUL. Legitimate target, Ken.

So mostly good vibes at FOWL. Decent roast potatoes, thick gravy if a tad tiring, really good vegetables and plump chicken. The only real issue I had was the cold dried lump of batter, which really was quite FOUL.

I’m scoring FOWL a very healthy 7.84 out of 10, and given my love of fried chicken, I suspect I’ll be back off-duty one time soon. Especially if it’s possible to grab a table in the sunshine.

Service definitely worth a mention too as that was very welcoming and friendly, quick to serve me too.

I’ll be back next week, and the mission is to a pub which looks a little Instagrammy for my tastes, but we’ll see.

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FOUL.