Dirty Bones (website here) is a basement restaurant and bar in High Street Kensington which specialises in the kind of ‘dirty’ food this city has grown accustomed to; hot dogs, ribs, wings etc. It’s backed by the same company as Rum Kitchen and Tommi’s Burger Joint, so one can only imagine a second Dirty Bones is on the cards.

It’s kitted out beautifully inside and on our Sunday night visit, even though the place was dead, they had live music which was a nice touch; it was the perfect place to chill out and have a chat. It was incredibly dark though so excuse ‘les images merde’.

We started with some sticky pork back ribs (£6) and the crispy spiced fried chicken (£8 for 1/2 a pile). The ribs were really tasty; the meat was firm meaning it had texture and didn’t turn to mush yet at the same time wasn’t tough or chewy. The chicken, two pieces of deboned thigh and a drumstick, had a beautifully crisp exterior giving way to soft, moist flesh. The coating had a really lovely spiciness to it too.

The hot dogs were less impressive however. We went for the Brit Dog (£7.50) and the Burger Dog (£8.50). The latter was my favourite as it was a hotdog made from aged bavette and beef fat mince – and you could really tell as the meaty flavour came through in every bite. But the bun was dry and a little burnt on the top. The pork hotdog in the Brit Dog had a really tough and chewy skin making it really difficult to bite into. The triple cooked fries (£3) were rubbish too; undercooked, under seasoned and slightly eggy. I’m pretty certain they hadn’t been cooked three times either.

As it was a Sunday and they’ve recently started doing the whole music thing, we were given 25% off the bill which was sweet of them. Even without that the bill was pretty cheap which is never a bad thing – I’m just not convinced the food on the whole was good enough. I’d gladly go back for a drink but I think I’ll leave the hot dogs next time.

6/10