The first Automat appeared in Berlin in 1895. It was, for all intents and purposes, a giant, decadent vending machine. Berliners on the hunt for a steak or a glass of cold milk could insert a coin, pull a lever, and from a glowing glass compartment the food would magically appear. In the 1900s, the novelty spread to America – genuine fast food, way before Ray Kroc got his mitts on McDonald’s – and truly took off in 1912, when a primo Automat opened in New York’s Times Square.
In the early noughties, on Mayfair’s Dover Street, an American brasserie by the name of Automat opened in a space that recalled a mid-century train carriage. It did eggs however you liked them at breakfast, a soft-shell crab po’ boy and a roast turkey sandwich at lunch, and a dirty Martini (then a novelty in London) with a cheeseburger at night. It was well-liked and pleasingly slouchy for Mayfair, but went into administration in 2012, limping on for a little bit before it shuttered for good. (The site is now home to Martin Kuczmarksi’s The Dover – its own slinky homage to an idealised Manhattan hideaway.)
The recently, very quietly rebooted Automat has no official connection to its Dover Street forebear, but a certain conspiratorial, enveloping mood remains, as does a brasserie-classic menu. In a subversion of the very public vending machine versions of 100 years ago, the hush-hush new Automat on Mount Street is hidden away behind Tanner Krolle, the venerable London leather-goods maker. You walk through the shop floor to find a windowed partition and emerge out the other side into a soft-lit space with lime-plaster walls, ox-blood ceilings, a mustard yellow carpet and LA Confidential-grade venetian blinds at the back.
There is a natural link here. “Frederick Krolle, the founder of Tanner Krolle, was a regular visitor to New York because he supplied Brooks Brothers and Saks with British luxury leather goods,” explains Damian Mould, one of Automat’s founders. “His guilty pleasure was dipping into his favourite Automat for lunch. It was totally different from any experience available in London.”
The new opening might best be described as a sort of Anglo-American diner – the secret door lending a speakeasy mood to things. This feels notable at a time when, on the one hand, Londoners seem to crave the serendipity and abandon of New York, while on the other New Yorkers seem to be moving to west London in their droves (or the Cotswolds – same thing).
And so a classic Automat burger (very good, by the way) sits next to a more anglicised chicken pie in a menu helmed by chef-director José Herrara, previously of Noma. The restaurant hopes to bring a certain “go-to, neighbourhood” feel to a little corner of London currently dominated by more outré dining options: Bacchanalia across the road, and Amazonico and Sexy Fish round the corner on Berkeley Square.
A certain clubby, chummy following is emerging, aided by the natural discretion of the set-up. The music has been curated by the chic Parisian DJ Chloe Caillet, some star-studded festive lunches are in the diary and friends of the restaurant will be displaying “their favourite Richard Prince and George Condo pieces” there in the new year, Mould says.
On a recent Tuesday evening, the crowd was good-looking and gregarious. One diner came just for the pecan pie, with a scoop of very good salted-caramel ice-cream on top. As they leave, the founders hope that guests “feel a little transported”, says Mould, “that they dipped into New York for a hot minute, that it was great bumping into people they knew – and that the Martini hangover was worth it.”
Automat
127 Mount Street, W1K 3NT
Hours:
Tue to Sat 5-11pm
“Martini Hour” Tue to Thu, 4-7pm
automatdining.com
@automatmayfair
