Published: 9 June, 2011
by MATTHEW LEWIN

Many years ago, I was one of those intrepid travellers who managed to traverse Europe with Arthur Frommer’s famous 1957 guidebook, Europe on $5 a Day. The trouble was that this was 1967, inflation had taken its toll and I was literally starving.

There were times when I hung around bakeries at closing time hoping to buy stale bread rolls at half price.

And the reason for that is that there just weren’t enough places like Kitchin N1 around in those days – places where you can fill your plate with decent food as often as you like and stock up on calories for a week.

I knew nothing about Kitchin N1 until last week, and was amazed to find that it has around for the past four years.

It’s a very big restaurant, and the food is arranged in a square in the middle of the room, with chefs beavering away in the middle, keeping the buffet dishes re-stocked and also cooking some food fresh to order.

Each of the four sides of the “kitchen” offers a different cuisine – Thai, Italian, Chinese and Indian, each with its own expert head chef. There is also a separate salad bar and dessert section. The menu changes constantly, so you will seldom find the same foods on offer two days running.

You help yourself to whatever you fancy, either from the buffet servers or by asking, for example, the Chinese chef to do you an instant stir-fry in a wok using ingredients you choose from the display.

And the Indian chef will be only too pleased to make you a naan bread while you watch.

Still hungry? Go and fill another plate from another section. 

Two or three times if you wish (and if you have the capacity), for nobody is counting.

The food? Well, at this price you would not expect haute cuisine. But it is better than the average high street buffet joint, and it would be incredibly hard to beat the value for money element here.

All you can eat for £14 – what’s not to like?

SUMMARY: Amazing value buffet.  Open every day for lunch and dinner.  All you can eat (literally) for £13.95 Sunday to Thursday (£5 at lunchtime), and £14.99 Friday and Saturday. If you can eat and be out by 7.30pm, the price is just £10.99.

Rating: 3 Out Of 5 Stars

KITCHIN N1
8 Caledonia Street
King’s Cross, N1
020 7713 8777
bookings@kitchinn1.co.uk
www.kitchinn1.co.uk