The Connaught Grill review: London’s classiest hotel plays with the formula
There are lovely five-star London hotels and then there are the ones run by The Maybourne Group. That’s the company behind The Berkeley, Claridge’s and The Connaught, the eagles of the hotel world that fly higher than all the rest.
In Mayfair, all the buildings look gorgeous, but propping up the corner of Adam’s Row and Carlos Place, The Connaught is impossibly handsome. Gold lettering above the wooden doors looks so old and intricate enough to predate the dinosaurs, while a curvaceous water feature in polished grey stone opposite the frontage hauls the building back into the modern day.
The lobby features a heavy-set Gothic staircase that takes itself so seriously that it could have come from the set of the Rocky Horror Picture Show; Patrick Stewart was laughing there with a friend last time I visited. In short, The Connaught is a place where proper grown-ups go. So I was excited to book into the new Grill, which had a stilted pandemic opening but is now finding its feet.
The Grill had been a mainstay in The Connaught in the middle of last century, when patrons including Ian Fleming indulged in steak and burgundy as they tossed around James Bond scripts with director Terence Young. The Grill closed in 2000 but this new contemporary iteration pays homage to its forefather. An original silver service trolley from the 1950s sits patiently in the corner awaiting the weekend roast service, but I was here for a midweek dinner.
The Connaught’s Grill has always favoured discretion and the new layout offers this for the modern day: cosy, secluded booths barely allow you to see another diner thanks to high walls and the restaurant’s long, thin layout. It’s an unusual layout: I’d pictured something more like a grand, convivial dining room, but this reinvention takes over a long and thin space and looks incredibly modern. It features unstuffy minimalist design like the polished woodwork of the banquette seating, which is so supple you feel as if you’re forever sinking further into them. Quite some feat over a three-hour dinner.
We begin with melt-in-the-mouth beef tartare with wispy, decorative strips of potato to mop up the fluids, and an artfully-designed scotch egg. Sliced open at the top like a dippy egg, it conjures the nostalgic joy of childhood breakfasts. A colourful plate of beetroot carpaccio looks like a Cubist painting; a dollop of this here, that there, all decorated with colourful piles of chilli aioli and avocado.
The Connaught can pull this sort of thing off, their diners trusting them to successfully experiment.
We trusted the sommelier to further decorate our booth with glasses of something fortified, and marched onwards towards the mains. A decadent 100 grams of rare kobe steak was spot on. These cows are famously – and probably apocryphally – massaged and played classical music, and these 50p sized nuggets of beef had all the richness of a classical symphony.
An organic Welsh rack of lamb felt like the wrong accompaniment to kobe, given it was another bite-sized portion at 250 grams, something a more eagle eyed waiter may have picked up. The lamb was everything you’d hope for, cooked on a light griddle giving it a slight crunch and a soft centre, but with one piece each, it looked lost on its expansive white plate.
A black truffle potato rosti was a return to form, and a plate of courgette made us feel less guilty about all the hedonism. Not for long though: dessert wine arrived alongside a neat mound of sticky toffee pudding and a collection of weighty slabs of British cheese.
This is a different sort of Grill, doing away with classic bistro-style dining and introducing something more modern, in terms of both the aesthetics and the atmosphere. The Connaught can pull this sort of thing off, their diners trusting them to successfully experiment. It’s probably not one for first-time Connaught goers: those people should head to the Michelin starred Jean-Georges or Hélène Darroze restaurants for the most obviously “Connaught” experience.
But this hotel is the sort of place every Londoner should spend at least two nights a year. So for those needing an excuse to return – and no one should need an excuse – The Grill awaits.
Book a table at The Connaught Grill online