Temper is a new pizza restaurant in Mercers Walk, Covent Garden, and it is as glib and polished as you could wish. Temper is the third of that name; it follows restaurants in the City of London and Soho, which served BBQ and breads, and did them well enough to merit a sister. (The founding chef, Neil Rankin, was at Barbecoa, Jamie Oliver’s failed meat barn in Piccadilly.)
It lives on the ground floor of what appears to be a new building, or development, made of bright orange bricks, with bright green false balconies, above an L-shaped court that runs from Mercer Street to Langley Street. On the ground floor, on pale grey tiles, is written the word, in lower case: temper. It’s a good name. It’s an emotion, in a district that once had much — Gin Lane is slightly to the north — but increasingly has none.
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