Not flashy, but still good
The Capital
22 Basil Street, SW3 1AT
Tel: 020 7591 1202
FOOD
SERVICE
ATMOSPHERE
Cost per person without wine: £50
IT’S all happening in Knightsbridge. Pierre Koffman, the cook who dazzled Eighties London with La Tante Clare and Noughties London with last year’s pop-up restaurant on the roof of Selfridges, has just opened an eponymous place in the Berkeley Hotel, in the same building as Marcus Wareing’s culinary big hitter. Gordon Ramsay recently re-opened Petrus round the corner, and in a few months Heston Blumenthal launches his first London joint, Dinner with Heston Blumenthal (not sure about that name), in the Mandarin Oriental Hotel.
These new arrivals join the likes of Zuma and Racine in feeding Knightsbridge’s international bon viveur crowd. The launch of the unfeasibly exclusive One Hyde Park development, right next door to the Mandarin Oriental, will only swell business further.
But amid all this swagger, one place took a step back in the past year. The Capital is the ever-so-smart restaurant in the ever-so-discreet Capital Hotel, hidden on a quiet street between Harrods and Harvey Nicks. It was winning Michelin stars when Marcus Wareing was still cleaning his mum’s plates, and Koffman protégé Eric Chavot picked up two in his ten year reign in the kitchen. His departure last autumn in search of new projects saw those stars get vapourised when Michelin brought out its 2010 guide.
The new chef is fellow Frenchman Jerome Ponchelle, formerly of Wiltons and The Connaught. In trying to win those stars back, he has the advantage of a restaurant where the gastronomic ambition is in directly opposite proportion to its size – it’s tiny. Just off the hotel’s austere little lobby, with a poky little cocktail bar to one side, the dining room has around 12 tables. It’s a reverential, talk-in-hushed-tones kind of a place – you wouldn’t exactly go for the buzz, though with wood-panelled walls and chairs upholstered in rich crimsons, it’s quietly sumptuous.
You could and should go for Ponchelle’s cooking, which turns out to be right on the money. We started with some plump scallops served with puy lentils and bacon in a gently curried sauce, and foie gras ravioli in a foamy truffle sauce. These were both rich, enlivening dishes cooked with care and precision, and the ravioli was particularly fine – I’ve not had foie gras in ravioli before, but the slippery, slidey textures of the pasta and the meat, and the sweetness of the foie against the earthy, perppery magic of the truffle foam, made for a heavenly dish.
Next up was lobster thermidor and beef tournedos Rossini. The lobster was served out of its shell which might bother some but pleased my friend, who didn’t fancy digging around bits of crustacean body armour when she could have it in a dainty pile that tasted as elegant as it looked. The tornedos Rossini – beef filet mignon presented with a slice of fried foie gras on top, in a rich jus with slices of truffle – seemed a natural extension of the foie gras ravioli starter, and was equally rich and almost as good. Ponchelle being steeped in classic French cuisine, the sauces for every dish were as devilishly delicious as the meat and fish they surrounded, and it was a pleasing touch to be supplied with a spoon for each course to help polish it all off.
The service is deferential and slick, and the wine collection is impressive – we enjoyed a few drops from the owner David Levin’s own winery. It’s a restaurant that lives up to its classy history in every element, and with Ponchelle’s tenure The Capital appears to be in a safe set of hands.