IT’S A DOGS LIFE

By Daniela Bonetto

As far a coming up with a new concept Bubbledogs is right on the buck. Hot dogs and bubbles! What more could you want from your menu. Husband and wife team, James Knappett and Sandia Chang, have tapping into the trend of the moment of making junk food acceptable to enjoy.

There are two distinct elements: Bubbledogs serves grower champagne, sparkling wine and hot dogs. All diners need to do is choose their ‘dog’. On offer there’s pork, beef or veggie. It’s a menu of ten hot dogs served ‘naked’, meaning on traditional dog in a steamed buns or more adventurous BLT dog, wrapped in bacon and served with truffle mayo and caramelized lettuce; the Jose dog with guacamole, sour cream, salsa and jalapenos, and a regularly changing guest chef’s special. A short menu of sides, including Tater Tots, adds a further taste of classic Americana.

Bubbledogs offers a concise list of grower champagne and sparkling wines available by the glass and the bottle. Chang is introducing lesser-known producers and regions to her list and a changing list of five cocktails features updated versions of classics, and a gin and tonic mixed with homemade tonic and Bubbledogs’ own bespoke gin, blended for them by the Cambridge Distillery.

Bubbledogs’ design, created by Knappett and Chang, incorporates an anaglypta ceiling, original reconditioned flooring, a copper-topped bar, reclaimed pine wall cladding, exposed brick, and Georgian wire windows.

The hidden away Kitchen Table meanwhile, showcases Knappett’s contemporary European cooking and innovative use of ingredients, which bears the hallmarks of his time at Noma and Per Se. Knappett prepares, serves and talks through his dishes with diners during the course of a tasting menu. Sample dishes include: Beetroot, fennel and garlic scapes; Chicken skin, grilled onion and burrata milk; Beef, dead nettle and carrot; and Hay, strawberry, malt and sweet cicely. The wine list consists of 100-150 bins, primarily lesser-known fine wines and small producers. Kitchen Table features seating for 19 diners at a stainless steel table-top, which surround the open kitchen. A wine wall behind a caged frontage, and an ‘ideas board’ – a blackboard which Knappett uses both to plan and to guide diners through his menus – complete the scene.

With such a snazzy concept there isn’t really much else to say apart from ‘enjoy wolfing down your dog’!

www.bubbledogs.co.uk