Tha Capital Hotel
Fay Maschler, Evening Standard (Rating: 3/5 stars)
In London’s thin top end restaurant scene – yes, you did read that right – the Capital matters. Our last survey ranked the Knightsbridge hotel as offering the third-best top-price cooking in London; Michelin’s two-star award is consistent. In that context, we can’t help finding its first review under new chef Jerome Ponchelle (originally of the Connaught, and latterly of Wilton’s) something of a disappointment.
The first disappointment is that the doyenne of critics thought it only worth 3/5 stars: pretty derisory for a place with its pretensions and history. The second is that there’s so little rationalisation of why the award is as it is. The critic ate both a lunch (about which she’s generally rather complimentary, save for very poor coffee), and a dinner of which all we’re told is that there was just one exceptional dish.
Why eat dinner, and then tell us so little about it? Surely, if the award to a restaurant with such a history is to be quite moderate, it would have been helpful to explain why? Having read the review, we’re not that much the wiser.
Dean Street Townhouse
Guy Dimond, Time Out (Rating: 4/5 stars)
“Comfort food is in”, says the critic, and “New Austerity the aesthetic”. “[S]upper clubs are booming, staying in is the new going out. But I never thought it would come to this. Soho House Group, now owned by Richard Caring of Caprice Holdings yet still one of the coolest hospitality outfits in our scintillating city, have decided that the future is sherry trifle (‘to share’), and treacle sponge with custard.” This new Soho dining room does everything very well, though, making the place an all-round hit.
Galvin La Chapelle
Marina O'Loughlin, Metro (Rating: 4/5 stars)
“It’s a long time since I’ve walked into a London restaurant – even ones that, defying financial jitters, have had gazillions spent on them – and stopped in my tracks. Maybe not since The Wolseley has a space elicited a jaw-dropped ‘Oh. My,’ from my cynical chops.” And so this hymn of praise goes on… The only criticisms the critic can find of the Galvin brothers’ Spitalfields newcomer is that it’s “a teeny bit … stiff”, and “steeply priced”, and the menu displays a “few jarring unseasonalities”.
Le Caprice
Perhaps you need to be a Brit? AA Gill – “the supposedly fierce critic of the [Sunday] Times of London” – gave Richard Caring’s new Upper East Side venture four stars, says this prominent local reviewer, but he feels entirely differently about it. In a piece headlined “Snooty & the Feast”, he says that “Le Caprice sure doesn’t have much use for us locals. Unless you’re an ocean-hopping regular at Caprice Holdings’ celebrity-full London joints, forget about Twittering epiphanies from this beautiful, boring, restaurant any time soon”.
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