temper Covent Garden – tastiness on the terrace

Today we’re heading for temper in Covent Garden. Choosing a restaurant these days is totally based on the ranking of the terrace. My ranking, that is. How big is it? Does it have cover in case of rain? Are there heaters? Is it sheltered from wind? Ideally the answers I want are: very big, yes, yes and yes. I feel for those restaurants that can’t fulfil any of these requirements and can’t open yet. But things so far on the road out of Covid seem to be going well in the UK (fingers crossed) and hopefully they will be opening soon. In the meantime we continue on our quest for the best al fresco eating in London in unpredictable April weather.

Which is why today’s choice is temper. A comfortable terrace in a lovely courtyard just off the main drag of Covent Garden with heaters and umbrellas. Just perfect.

It’s a steak restaurant with meat butchered in-house and cooked over flames. But it’s also much more than that as we soon discovered. The menu is handily divided into Snacks, Small/Medium and Large Plates and Sides. We did our duty and sampled something from each section. It’s a sharing kind of place so we were able to order a lovely array of delicious dishes.

What’s on the menu

Three spicy snacks to start with. The Mexican influence soon became obvious, I love Mexican food – so that made me happy!

Little crispy pork bites with a spicy sauce and plenty of herbs had plenty of crunch and a real chilli bite. Next visit I’m gonna have one of these to myself. Seriously good.

Love a taco! Two taco plates here – starting with the vibrant prawns.

Or how about Pork Pastor? Pulled pork, delightful sauce with chilli and herbs.

On to the Small/Medium Plates section.

For a restaurant with meat as its focus (our waiter even told us that it’s all about the meat), the vegetables at temper were a real highlight. Like the cauliflower mole. A delightful mix of spices and chilli served on a tasty flatbread.

Our waiter recommended we order a plate of the Burrata with lime and jalapeño to add a touch of creaminess to our flatbread dishes. So we obeyed. Good decision – beautiful creamy Burrata and great acidity from the lime.

This is the beef brisket tajin carnitas. Carnitas literally means little meats and the meat in question (beef in this case) is slow cooked and then shredded. Tajin is a Mexican seasoning made from salt, chilli and dehydrated lime. Didn’t know that but I do know now that I need Tajin in my life. So tender and tasty.

Okay, so now we’re getting to the Large Plates. I was stressing over how I would be able to tuck into a large steak after so many delicious titbits. But there’s really no need to stress about anything at temper. They encourage tables to share steaks. What a top idea! It meant we could share a main course of a 500g T-bone and a couple of sides. I haven’t had a T-bone for the longest time (they are one of my absolute favourite things) because I know I probably can’t (or shouldn’t) eat a whole one. Well now I know where to go for my T-bone fix. It comes ready-sliced to the table, was just as flavourful as I remember (if not more) and perfectly cooked.

So completing our full coverage of the menu we chose two fabulous sides. Now this is what I call a vegetable dish! Cabbage is possibly my favourite vegetable (yes, a day of favourites here it seems) so we ordered the grilled Hispi cabbage which came with beef-fat béarnaise and corn. What the menu didn’t mention was it also came with crispy kale. This is a vegetable combination made in heaven. Seriously go to temper just for the hispi!

And who can resist a bowl of truffle Parmesan chips. Not us and good thing, too, they were fab.

How we loved our lunch at temper. Even if it was a bit chilly on the terrace. Come on summer! I want to be sitting out there in the sunshine and doing it all over again. Oh and I haven’t lost my grammar mojo, the restaurant spells its name with a lower case t! Just in case you were concerned.