I have been to Ognisko several times, but don’t remember a single visit. Vague flashes of recall: walls of farmed-salmon pink, acres of melancholy carpet, snatches of conversation with older women, their mouths etched by the tracery of many cigarettes. But of the food? Nothing. Oh, wait: maybe a vast knuckle of meat, the inevitable fuchsia-coloured soup. Other than that, nic. Blame the vodka. Litres of lovely, lovely vodka.
Ognisko Polskie, or the Polish Hearth Club, was born at the start of the second world war as a social hub for emigrés; and I’d managed to forget about it altogether. And then tickets to see the Shoes: Pleasure And Pain show at the nearby V&A (shooooes!) on a sweltering day reminded me that this lovely white stucco building had been saved from redevelopment and recently sprouted a terrace. It seemed like a brainwave.
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