Trend Report: Decadent Dining
Stevie Parle is an ingredients guy. His early London hits included Palatino, Craft and Joy, and were all led by Stevie’s love of regenerative farming. In May, he opened Town on a vast corner of Drury Lane. And while the food is important – go for the pork chop with burnt apple sauce, stay for the cherry pie – the size, gloss and moody lighting spoke of a new sense of occasion. On opening night, we spied Bella Freud, Jack Guinness and Gary Lineker trying the kitchen’s now-famed potato bread with dripping and fried sage leaves with honey and chilli, and the restaurant has won numerous five-star reviews from critics since launching. One of the reasons for its success? It’s a cool, sensual space full of people having fun.
“Five years ago, the focus was mainly on food,” Stevie explains. “Now it’s just as much about how the whole experience feels. Hospitality has become more generous, more personal, more about connection. We think harder about the details – the welcome, the warmth, the way people leave feeling they’ve been properly looked after, not just fed.”
“Glamour comes from feeling like you’re part of something special,” he continues. “It’s a room full of people enjoying themselves, cocktails landing on tables, that low hum of conversation. You can’t force it, but you can set the stage with lighting, music, service, food, drink, design and a bit of luck – all working together. I love watching people walk into Town for the first time and seeing their reaction – you can almost see them think, ‘Oh, right, I can have some fun here’.”
This same sense of glamour can be found at Mayfair’s The Dover, which was opened by Martin Kuczmarski, former COO of Soho House Group, last year. “People are craving that old-school hospitality – white tablecloths, candle-lit rooms, a romantic atmosphere – and that’s exactly what we’ve recreated at The Dover,” he explains. Picture pushing through thick, deep-red velvet curtains as you enter the bar, as waiters bus around with trays of martinis (make ours a CBD-laden Sleepy Pony) and diners pile into dark corners, sharing boxes of fries and a plate of spaghetti and meatballs, as GM Tobias Smithson glides serves up his signature, relaxed charm.
Like Stevie, Martin agrees that the menu itself isn’t the restaurant’s main draw anymore. “The key to creating a successful menu is to avoid over-complicating things,” he says. “Keep it simple, with great quality and focus on food and drinks that people enjoy – nothing too fancy. Simplicity is the maximum expression of elegance.” This elegance can be recreated back at home: The Dover also sells scented candles, boxed up in chic packaging that matches the same dark red as the velvet curtains. For anyone looking for a taste of the real thing, here are three key trends making decadent dining a lot of fun right now…
THE ITALIAN-AMERICAN BIG-HITTERS
The Dover is just one of a handful of Italian-American restaurants that has shaken up London’s hospitality scene over the last year or so. Dante at Claridge’s Restaurant is an NYC spin-off that proved so popular, the August-only pop-up has now been extended until the end of the year – great news for Grasshopper cocktail fans on this side of the pond. Then there’s Shoreditch hotspot One Club Row, which opened in April. Led by James Dye (The Camberwell Arms) and Benjy Leibowitz (NoMad NYC), the restaurant’s old-school hospitality draws on the decade Benjy spent working in New York. Benjy describes the restaurant as “the sort of place where you see people bumping into old friends (or making new ones) and regulars popping in for a quick dinner who are then still with us when the house pianist plays their final number”. We describe it as the perfect restaurant for relaxed special occasions – from martini-fuelled catch-ups with friends to candlelit date nights – all accompanied by elite burgers (served with their own silver jug of peppercorn sauce), classic steak tartare and silver platters of oysters.
And, of course, there’s Carbone, a Mayfair outpost of the cinematic Greenwich Village original, which opened in September. An A-list take on the Italian restaurants that dominated the New York scene back in the middle of the last century, it continues to draw in the stars of today with its period interiors, sense of theatre and impeccable service. The traditional NYC-style Italian-American cooking has been taken to the next level by chef Mario Carbone – the meatballs are unmissable but then so are the spicy rigatoni vodka and veal parmesan.
With interiors that nod to the glamour of The Godfather and Goodfellas (think oil paintings, more of that deep-red colour palette, here used in full floor-to-ceiling splendour), the restaurant envelopes you with a sense of occasion as soon as you descend its staircase, which is decorated with a hand-painted mural of the OG restaurant’s regulars and famous faces. “Carbone is an immersive experience – it's very transportive,” Mario tells us. “There's great drama in the restaurant that you’ll be hard pressed to find elsewhere. ‘Experiential’ became the buzzword after we opened in 2013. I do give us credit for starting experiential fine dining. Diners love the food of course, but some people love their interactions with the captains (head waiters). Some people love the uniforms. Some people love the art. Some people love the music. It's a combination of all those things – consciously or subconsciously – that create this great evening.”
Carbone co-owner Jeff Zalaznick also likes to lean into the spectacle. “Dining in the last decade has become your night out,” he says. “Look back 20 years, you'd go to dinner then a show. The restaurant is now the performer and London is one of the great stages we've always wanted to perform on.” They’re clearly onto a good thing – last week, the pair announced they’re going to bring another of their NYC restaurants, The Grill, to London when Auberge opens its new hotel on Piccadilly next spring. Bring on the tableside carved prime ribs.
THE MARTINI RESURGENCE
Another of The Dover’s highlights is its dedicated martini menu, which spans everything from classics to the ‘Hot and Dirty’, which comes with olive brine and chilli. “People are tired of loud, overcomplicated bars serving fruit-laden cocktails that take forever to make,” Martin explains. “They want something that is simple, quick and can be trusted but still feels glamorous, elegant and has a sense of ceremony about it.”
One Club Row also does a mean line of martinis, and we’re especially taken with the team’s mini martinis, which can be ordered as you peruse the main menu – adding a dash of sophistication to what can often be a long wait between being seated and having that first shoulder-relaxing sip of a cocktail. “The cost of living in London has definitely made people more cautious about spending than they were five years ago,” Benjy explains. “This translates into guests craving a sense of familiarity and comfort – whether that is the simple pleasure of a rotisserie chicken or a classic martini, because you don't fancy taking a punt on something mental that a ‘mixologist’ dreamt up.” You certainly won’t be taking a punt on the drinks here – the four martinis on offer include a classic and French martini (made with a dash of pineapple juice), alongside its Club Row Martini (Tanqueray 10, Punt e Mes, Dolin Bianco, maraschino liqueur and bitters) and Olive Oil Martini (Tanqueray 10, Noilly Prat, Roots Mastiha and mint olive oil).
Other notable new martinis across town include the Dill Boy served at Town, which is made with Luksusowa vodka, dill akvavit, dry vermouth and a drop of dill oil that’s made it an Instagram favourite. Dante X Claridge’s serves the NYC and LA outpost’s pre-bottled martinis, served with dyed olives for a dash of drama, as well as a London-exclusive caviar martini. 74 Duke – the new Parisian brasserie from the team behind French burger sensation Supernova – serves beautiful martinis alongside bistro classics such as grilled king shrimp with cognac sauce and asparagus with autumn truffle sauce. And suave restaurant legend Jeremy King is enticing diners over to Bayswater with The Park’s ‘Sharpeners’ menu, which includes a Martini del Nonno (capovilla grappa di bassano, Italicus bergamot, Cocchi americano), a Sherry Martini (manzanilla sherry, gin, dry vermouth, peach) and Turf Club Martini (No 3 gin, dry vermouth, maraschino, orange and Angostura bitters) for £7.50 a pop. Don’t forget to mark the occasion with a loo selfie, which has now become an almost-mandatory rite of passage for any reservation at The Park.
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THE LONG LUNCH
Another occasion The Park comes into its own for in a long lunch, a martini or two in tow as the light streams in through the restaurant’s lovely large windows. At the end of April, The Dover opened for long lunches, having been evening-only before, and last month, One Club Row opened for lunch and weekend brunch. “Long lunches are one of life's greatest pleasures and nothing makes us happier than facilitating a three-martini lunch,” says Benjy. “There’s demand for long lunches – maybe working from ‘home’ has made it easier to write off Friday afternoons after one martini too many at lunch?”
Stevie says he hopes long lunches are back. “I think people are reclaiming pleasure,” he explains. “There’s a reaction against rushed, functional meals. Now it’s about slowing down, enjoying the company, making it an occasion. A martini or a long lunch says you’re here to enjoy life. It’s timeless, and it feels very current again.”
As for late-night dining, that’s something some restaurateurs are still trying to bring back. At The Park and his Mayfair A-list magnet Arlington, Jeremy offers 25% off the bill to those dining after 9.45pm. “I don’t think restaurants are there yet,” he says of making the capital a late-night dining destination once again. “But I am doing my damnedest to make it so.”
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