Great buildings and great restaurants can go together. New York’s famous Seagram Building designed by Mies van der Rohe, for example, has housed one of the world’s classic restaurants – The Four Seasons – since 1959. It is still at the heart of Manhattan’s media power scene today.

London’s Gherkin is a great building, and not just from afar. As you approach its base, it’s clear that no expense has been spared to ensure that the finish lives up to the concept. The ground floor would make a great venue for a ‘serious’ power restaurant. So what do we lucky Londoners have? A ‘gastrobar’.

It’s not even an especially memorable gastrobar. Just your standard Lewis & Clarke outlet. For those unfamiliar with the brand, L&C has a number of funky-ish City venues that blur the distinction between bar and restaurant. It’s a formula that can work well in premises with a bit of Boho potential. You can say what you like about those Swiss Re guys, though, but ‘Bohemian’ isn’t the first word that springs to mind. ‘Their’ building may look like a gherkin from a distance, but up close it has zero funk potential.

So, if you put the wrong type of restaurant in the wrong place, what do you get? A sort of nothing. A place where service comes and goes efficiently, but never engages. Where the dishes come and go without, at least in your reviewer’s case, resembling much enjoyment. Where coffee comes in jug-sized mugs, and tastes of very little. You get, in short, something very far indeed from the eating place London’s new icon deserves.

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