IT’S FRIDAY night and a trannie is downing Prosecco out of a champagne glass and making love to the wall. Welcome to Bistrotheque, the most unadulterated, off-the-hook fun that you can have in Hackney.
Yes, hidden down a backstreet near the trendy area of London Fields, is a quiet, unassuming little joint that offers amazing food and the funniest trans-gender cabaret show that you could wish to find. It’s nights like this that make me love London as much as I do.
We started the night by having dinner in the restaurant upstairs. The dining room is white, airy and beautiful. The quality of the food is incredible and it’s fairly priced at £35 for a three course meal. I start the meal with a goats cheese salad that is delicious with fresh leaves and a zingy tomato paste on small pieces of crunchy bread complementing the fromage.
I then have a main course which is a succulent whole chicken breast and leg with a beautiful crisp skin. It comes complemented with plump cloves of garlic. I order a side of al dente green vegetables which are fantastic.
We share dessert and they are all exceptional. The creme brulee is rich and infused with vanilla with an irresistable crack to the toffee top. I sample a chocolate and raspberry cake with creme fraiche which is practically liquid it’s so smooth and melts in your mouth. But the stand-out dessert is the honey and thyme roast peaches with marscapone. The fruit was sweet, tangy and bursting with flavour. Stunning.
After our meal, we head down to the cabaret bar for the show and the LipSinkers put on a hilarious, high-energy, silly and fun show for us.
Ridiculously popular and ludicrously glamorous, these naughty East End tranny perennials presented their Spring/Summer poptastic musical collection.
Sashaying through the crowd, Richardette, John Sizzle, Lisa Lee and Blanche du Bois all treated us to a brilliantly fun cabaret show.
Compered by a sharp-witted cross-dresser (who gave us the advice that if we didn’t know the words, just repeat ‘watermelon’), we are encouraged to join in as the other LipSinkers mimed their way through a host of popular songs on the small stage at the front of the room.
Necking wine (“Transvestites run on prosecco,” we are told) and making a few fuck-ups with the accompanying music (“You can’t be beautiful and clever,” She quips) it’s a raucous show and I can’t stop laughing at the wicked absurdity of it all.
Each taking it in turns to lip-sync their way through their choice of tune, as well as a stack of group numbers, the ladies polish a friend’s head with a feather duster during one routine and raise their glasses to ours during another.
No-one is safe in the crowd. I am called “Lily Allen on a hen night” by the compere much to the delight of my friends and when I am distracted, with my eyes away from the stage inbetween songs, I am told to concentrate. After downing so much red wine, my sides ache from laughing so much.
It’s an absolute hidden gem in the dark east end of London, catch it while you can.
Bistrotheque: 23-27 Wadeson Street, London, E2 9DR
Open for brunch: Saturday & Sunday 11:00 – 16:00
Open for dinner: Sunday – Thursday 18:30 – 22:30 / Friday & Saturday 18:30 – 23:00
£35 for 3 course set menu and show.
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