I live in almost the most perfect area of London.  A quick scoot into Soho, an energetic leap across to a huge central London park and a mere whiff of a croissant away from an amazing weekend farmers market where the eggs still smell like poo.  It’s  an angel’s wing away from being capital P Perfect.

So what’s bringing the angel score down?  Local eatery, Honey & Co.

I missed the resolution-making ritual as the calendar ticked over this year (I might have been distracted by the chocolate marshmallow petit four at Bubbledogs - or finishing off the Christmas pud on new Year’s day…ahem). So I hastily threw together a virtuous list of ‘I will be better at…’ to coincide with the changing of the guards from snake to horse for Chinese New Year. Horses are lucky after all.  It included, ‘I will be better at reducing the size of my girth’. Of course I hadn’t factored in Honey & Co.

I was first seduced by the tiny middle eastern café-cum-restaurant during the week of its opening at the end of 2012.  I wandered past it on my way to a meet a very fine latte around the corner and was struck by the window display of lusciousness. Cakes, buns, biscuits and pastries -  the sort of stuff your Gran would have thrown together if she’d been at all interested in baking and had middle eastern heritage. Mine had neither. I had a lot of lost time to make up.

I scoffed and gobbled during that first visit, and have been steadily packing on the pounds ever since. Mr Honey and his lovely wife Honey are largely, though not solely, responsible for me ‘sizing up’ over the summer.

Oh I know I should be stronger and more disciplined, but this year they seem to have found ever-more creative ways of luring me into their hive. Oh a little ‘Fitzrovia bun’ here - all sticky and glistening from its glassy sugary glaze or a mere morsel of slow braised lamb shoulder with pomegranate and almonds there.  It’s all second chins and tummy rolls dressed up in a honeybee’s stripes.

My small reprieve is on Sundays when their grey wooden door is kept closed. Otherwise they’re open for breakfast, lunch and dinner. So many options for calorie consumption, so little self-control.  It appears the horse may need to look for a little help from next year’s Chinese new year animal, the sheep.  No, I don’t feel hopeful either. Baa.

The Scratch Score
4/5
£ very well priced brunch, lunch & dinner options.
Everything is gorgeous. Try not to disgrace yourself by being a piggie.

Honey & Co
25a Warren St,
London
W1T 5LZ

020 7388 6175

http://honeyandco.co.uk/