Big Easy Covent Garden - Covent Garden, London

The Big Easy was the first barbecue restaurant to land on these shores and carve out a niche for quality southern-cooked chow. Following on from its near-iconic success on the King's Road, the ownership was taken over the site that formerly housed the Charing Cross & Strand Electricity Supply Corporation, and hope to create a comparable buzz and hum with their newly arrived bar and restaurant. The interior was designed by Macaulay Sinclair and retains many of the industrial accents originally built into the room, including copper conduits, brickwork, steel and iron girders, and pimped it out with exposed beams and assorted Americana running the gamut from lobster buoys to neon signage. Perhaps one of the more crucial features of the Big Easy are its Argentinean parilla charcoal grills and their 2.5 metre wood-burning oven. They've imported pit master Pete Daversa of NYC's Blue Smoke BBQ to work his signature slow-cooked artistry on the menu, creating sumptuous, smoky pulled meats, flame-kissed rare-breed steaks, and a litany of robust desserts. On our visit we opted for the 'Grand Appetizer Platter', with two different type of chicken wings, hushpuppies, calamari and tempura prawns. Truth be told, it was a tall order to finish. For mains we enjoyed a lush fillet steak cooked a perfect, pink medium rare, with roast mushrooms, hot smoked beans, and prawns in the shell on the side. A massive lobster was brought to our table with chips and a salad, steamed then split in half and charcoal-grilled. We didn't have any room for dessert at that point, but the staff members, in true American fashion, were keen to offer doggie bags, which made for some excellent midnight snacking. With restaurants like these opening up so often in Covent Garden, it's easy to see why it's becoming one of London's preeminent dining locales.