Naked & Famous — The Other Side of Portobello Road

Beneath Portobello Road

Portobello Road is known for its market, its antiques dealers and its weekend crowds. Its nightlife is less visible, largely because a good deal of it is underneath the shops.

Opened in 2022 beneath zēphyr, Naked & Famous belongs to Pachamama Group, the company behind Pachamama and Chicama. It shares an address with the Greek restaurant upstairs but has an entirely separate, drinks-led identity — where zēphyr trades on Mediterranean lightness, the basement goes somewhere darker and considerably more theatrical.

It seats thirty-five. That number is the proposition rather than a limitation: it makes the room suitable for a long conversation or a small gathering, and unsuitable for anything resembling a night out at scale.

A Seventies State of Mind

The interior speaks fluent 1970s lounge: marigold orange, monochrome detailing, velvet, brass and dark timber, with chrome catching the low light. It is warm in a way the restaurant above deliberately is not.

A room this size can carry a design this expressive without becoming exhausting, which is the trick larger bars attempting the same thing usually miss. And there is something appealing about how little interest it shows in Portobello Road's own visual identity. Above ground the street is instantly recognisable; downstairs, it gives way to a room with an identity entirely its own.

Having gone back several times, the atmosphere is still the strongest reason to. It is a room to spend an evening in rather than one to photograph and leave.

The Margarita Test

Agave is the foundation, but the list is broader than the specialism suggests.

On our most recent visit we ordered a rhubarb margarita and a lychee margarita. Both take a familiar cocktail somewhere different while keeping it recognisably itself, which is a fair test of a bar built on tequila — the drink is simple enough that errors show and flexible enough to reward a bartender who has thought about it.

That range is the point. A specialist bar can easily feel built for enthusiasts, and this one doesn't. The forty-odd tequilas and mezcals behind the bar are there if you want to work through them, and the namesake cocktail — mezcal, tequila blanco, herbal liqueur and agave — makes the case directly. But the published list has also run to a kumquat Margarita, a chipotle-and-ginger Spicy Mule and a yuzu-and-grapefruit Paloma, which means you can have an interesting drink here without treating the evening as a tasting exercise.

More Than a Restaurant Bar

The relationship with zēphyr is useful. Greek sharing plates upstairs, cocktails and late-night atmosphere downstairs, and the option of doing both without leaving the building.

It is also bookable, including for private hire, which matters a great deal at thirty-five seats — this is not a bar to chance on a Friday. Service runs Wednesday to Sunday from six.

Equally, it works as the second stop of an evening that started somewhere else. Portobello Road has enough restaurants within a few minutes' walk to build a night around, and a basement room is a good place to end up. The separation from the street is the appeal: it feels like somewhere you decided to go rather than somewhere you wandered into.

Why It Earns Its Place

Naked & Famous earns its place by having a clear idea and executing it at a scale that suits it. The design supplies the character, the agave collection supplies the substance, and the thirty-five seats make sure neither gets diluted.

The two margaritas were a reminder that the bar is not reserved for people who can tell a Oaxacan espadín from a highland blanco. The specialism gives the list a backbone; it doesn't become a barrier.

There are practical limits. Book ahead, particularly later in the week, and bear in mind it is a basement if stairs are a consideration. But in a neighbourhood where plenty of venues compete on size and visibility, this one competes on concentration — a small orange room, a considered list, and a reason to come back.