Solis, SW11

Chicken or steak?

Normally I’d feel a little bad writing up a restaurant when I’d only tried one of its mains. Luckily, at Solis that isn’t so bad — it means I’ve already tried half the menu.

Positioned in the renovated Battersea Power Station on the fringes of its Arcade food hall — Solis has its own site, but is also found on the menu at both Arcade locations — this is a restaurant with a simple premise: chicken or steak. I found myself there for lunch last week ahead of a work meeting nearby, and having tried all the interesting bits of Arcade in Tottenham Court Road already, I faced a choice: Gracey’s Pizza or Solis. And since I didn’t feel like relitigating the crispy pizza argument so soon, Solis it was.

Despite centring around two dishes, Solis claims influences from across Spain, Portugal, Uruguay, and Argentina. The chicken is loosely South American, half a bird grilled to order then drizzled in spicy aji-aji oil. The skin could be crisper, but it’s cooked evenly and kept tender, helped in that aspect by the pool of luminous oil. The aji packs a little punch, but mostly a warming, smoky flavour rather than direct, intense heat.

The steak I didn’t try, but it costs a few quid more and comes in a pepper sauce, similarly sparse and simple. You can order either meat on its own, or accompanied by crisp, paprika-coated fries — good, even if they are only destined to serve as sauce soakers — and a tomato and onion salad, let down a little by the tomatoes themselves. With little else here to distract, you really need the best produce you can lay your hands on to make a salad like this work — these didn’t fit the bill (few British tomatoes do), a little mushy and uninspiring.

There are more options once you get away from the mains. At lunch, you can get either the chicken or steak in a less Spartan bocadillo sandwich, along with a meatball and salsa option. I’m not sold on the choice of a brioche sub roll for the sandwiches, but I haven’t tried it so can’t judge them too harshly.

In the absence of steak I made a point of starting with beef croquetas, which might have been the best thing I ate. Sweetened slightly with caramelised onions then roughed up a little by a lick of good mustard, these nailed the all important textural contrast: a momentary crunch followed by the effortless ooze of the piping hot filling. There are gildas too, though if I came back I’d have my eye on the huevos rellenos: boiled eggs with tuna mayo and chilli salsa, capitalising on our recent collective obsession with the devilled egg.

The loose Spanish theme is rounded out with a basque cheesecake for dessert and a drinks menu led by Spanish beer, South American wine, and jugs of sangria. They even serve Vichy Catalan by the litre and deliver bread and olive oil on the house, which is almost enough to generate a faint Mediterranean breeze.

For what’s essentially a restaurant in a shopping centre, Solis has a surprisingly strong offering. The four-country theming sounds unnecessarily eclectic, but the Solis team — the same Tā Tā Eatery duo behind Tóu, though this isn’t a patch on that — have found a deft through line that helps everything feel of a piece. On a Thursday lunchtime it was quiet, quick, and friendly, where the compact menu surely helps: offering two mains, two desserts, and a handful of starters makes things easier for everyone, especially when most of those offerings are kept so simple and straightforward.

I wouldn’t go out of my way to fit a trip to Solis in, but this was the best meal I’ve eaten at either Arcade so far, and I wouldn’t say no to the chance to work my way through the other half of the menu.