The golden pair of London’s restaurant scene have done it again. The Corbin-King partnership, spanning 30 years, that is responsible for iconic culinary institutions such as The Ivy, Le Caprice, J. Sheekey (these ones they sold) and later The Wolseley and Delaunay, now has another behemoth to their name. Brasserie Zedel, having opened just earlier this year, is nothing short of spectacular. One doesn’t quite know the beast that lies below the streets when walking into what seems like a small french brasserie. I certainly was confused as to where to go, thinking the restaurant was upstairs and that I should take the lift, instead of going down to where the bar is. Even whilst walking down the stairs, the place seems eerie. Then of course, one reaches the main concourse of Zedel with passages to the bar, the performance room and the restaurant.
Brasserie Zedel, London
Lecture room at Sketch
My first memory of Sketch was when it had newly opened and I ended up doing a brief stint in the Gallery kitchen. I had no clue who Pierre Gangaire was, but that he was some big shot French chef who had teamed up with Mourad Mazouz of Momo to open an uber-luxe, decadent space in the West End where the restaurant was an enormous art gallery, the waitresses very beautiful, the kitchen brand new, the toilets worth a trip just on their own and the prices exorbitant. Almost a decade later, Michelin’s usual palaver of leaked results stated that the upstairs restaurant, Lecture Room & Library had just won their second star, having dined there just a week before.
Hélène Darroze at the Connaught
My first memory of the Connaught was of wheeling a very noisy trolley full of ice cream and sorbet mixes from the Claridges to the Connaught to be churned at 4am. I was working the night shift at Gordon Ramsay Claridges and our ice cream machine had broken down, and the closest ally was Angela Hartnett’s kitchen at the Connaught. Nothing makes more noise than a metal trolley full of metal containers rattling down the West End at an ungodly hour – even the police found it rather amusing. Since then, the Ramsay empire has crumbled, Angela has found other avenues on her own and the Connaught is now under its new queen, Hélène Darroze, running her second 2 star Michelin restaurant. Whilst London may not be the food capital of the world, it does have some of the best lunch deals and on this occassion, £60 for 4 courses and 2 glasses of wine seemed to fit the bill quite nicely.
Bombay Brasserie
Being one of the old world restaurants, Bombay Brasserie is a behemoth of a dining room, fitting in no less than 300 covers. The dining room in spite of its recent refurbishment to give it the visage of a grand Parisian restaurant stands out like a sore thumb as soon as one picks up the menu; there is just no harmony between the sound and style of food offered and the room it is served in. The menu, straight out of the 1970′s, feels like it should be served in one of the several impostors masquerading as restaurants on Brick Lane.
