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FREAK SCENE

Aussie chef Scott Hallsworth walks through his establishment in shorts and a t-shirt, flipping meat on the grill and pouring beer for customers. It’s a far cry from his training; he was head chef at Michelin-starred Nobu Park Lane for six years before flying back to Australia to open the Nobu in Melbourne. He is a master of pan-Asian cuisine and has taken it in a new (decidedly casual) direction at Freak Scene.

The Aussie with a funky Asian attitude to food might have cooked for the likes of the Beckhams, Michael Jackson and Roman Abramovich, but he started his latest restaurant Freakscene (named after the Dinosaur Jr song) as a hot and humble pop-up in Farringdon using portable gas cookers. It now has a permanent site in Soho playing his greatest hits on a robata grill and the results are outstanding feel-good (or should that be feed-good?) grazing plates that will have you coming back for more.

But it was pretty damned good considering it was being cooked by one guy, when in the same space Barrafina had maybe ten people helping out. So, a quick Google search and, hang on, that's Scott Hallsworth? The Aussie-born genius behind Kurobuta? What's he doing here? Google said he'd sold up and was doing this. "I wondered why Kurobuta had gone to shit", said JD. "I ate there a few months back: absolute rubbish".