Dinner ended in a fridge. Underground, off London’s Portobello Road, surrounded by bubbling jars; koji blooming like suede; wonky vegetables caught mid-pickling. Ten minutes earlier I’d finished a chocolate-tahini crémeux in the restaurant upstairs, alongside (full disclosure) my second or third martini. Now the man behind the “how-is-this-vegan?” magic, Holy Carrot chef Daniel Watkins, was showing me the secret – a laboratory of pickles and ferments.
My dining experience came through Mastercard’s priceless.com, in collaboration with the restaurant booking platform TheFork. Its culinary offering is split into two flavours: Priceless Experiences get you closer to the craft (here, the post-dessert walk through Holy Carrot’s fermentation “library” with the chef-owner), while Hotspots lands you tables that are usually snapped up in the time it takes to type your card number into the booking system.
I used both options in the same week: the backstage access at Holy Carrot; the priority booking for Birmingham’s experimental restaurant Albatross Death Cult. Two very different doors, in very different cities, and one simple idea – that the right kind of access can change how you
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