Earlier this year I was asked by Millennium Hotels to share a recommendation of my favourite place to eat in London, and it had to be El Vaquero, which is an all-you-can-eat BBQ joint in North London. They currently have two venues – Mill Hill and Whetstone – and the Whetstone branch was pretty much my Mecca during the last few months of my anaemic pregnancy.
El Vaquero isn’t the greatest place if you’re not a meat-eater, but if you are, you will find a new level of happiness here. It’s around £25, and for that you get unlimited access to the salad cart, which also has some cooked veg (I recommend the green beans which are yummy), some cooked meat in sauces, rice, plantain, and that’s also where you’ll find the unlimited supply of dipping sauces like BBQ sauce and Sweet Chilli.
At your table, you’ll be served an unlimited supply of chips and you’ll also have two lights, one red, one green, which lets the staff know whether you’d like them to continue bringing you food. Green light on, you’ll be visited every few minutes with a waiter carrying a skewer of meat – anything from steak, leg of lamb, chicken wings, chicken breast cooked in various sauces, sausages and some slightly more adventurous meats like chicken hearts (bleurgh, no thanks) – and you say “yes” or “no” to each skewer, then how much you’d like. There’s also garlic bread and barbequed pineapple brought around in a similar fashion. You will leave feeling extremely full, well beyond your limits, but in the best possible way – I’ve brought all my friends here and they’ve brought their friends there, and so on, and so forth, as it really is the sort of place that you visit once and always go back. I also love the fact that when you return, they ask what your favourite skewer was from your previous visits (mine is usually a toss-up between the lamb and the Teriyaki Chicken) and they ensure that you’re served that first. I cannot recommend El Vaquero enough, and I’m drooling just thinking about it!
There we have it, El Vaquero is my hidden gem of London, and don’t forget to check out what the other bloggers decided were their spots to visit here – link.
*Content written in exchange for a voucher*
