Its chefs have put together a package of tasty dishes that pay homage to their suppliers. The excellent royal fillet of smoked salmon from esteemed smokehouse H.Forman & Son is wonderfully springy and particularly good with wasabi and radish.
South Coast Fisheries does a mean Cornish crab which Balans serves on an explosive black cracker with caviar and celery.
A beautifully bitty, crunchy peanut butter icecream comes via Jude’s Ice Cream , a supplier which has won 25 Taste awards.
And beyond the food is the decor and ethos: the Soho establishment claims to flick the V sign at ‘twitching curtains’ and small-mindedness. Venture into Balans’ murky interiors and there’s Victorian wallpaper and filigreed lampshades setting off rudie paintings of people in pleasurable poses. Just saying.