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Blakes Hotel
ALL restaurants are expensive; some are more expensive than others. Blakes (370 6701) is more expensive than most. I went there two weeks ago and I still haven't recovered from the bill (£81 for two, Without wine or service). I hate to think how I'd be feeling if I had had to pay for it myself.
Not that many people who eat here are themselves paying. The hotel's clientele is largely made up of the ritzier end of the rock business (those who can't afford it, or whose record companies can't afford it, have to make do with the Portobello Hotel) and seriously, though quietly, rich Americans. The restaurant is open to non-residents, but regular diners belong to the same club: six-figure recording con- tracts are chewed over in this stylishly subfuse basement; George Michael allows himself to be interviewed here.
These days actresses are either market- ing their own scent or opening restaurants, and this is Anouska Hempel's baby. Blakes was conceived as much as a romantic rendezvous as a home from home for errant recording artists and executives, and she has done the place up with a certain sultry glamour.
Outside, what would be ordinary South- Ken red brick is coated an elegant deep, dark green (the same colour as David Owen's brace of houses in Limehouse). Inside, all is gleaming wood, with well- aimed lamps spilling light into discreet corners. You go down a cane-banistered black staircase to the basement restaurant, where you are plunged into more black — walls, ceiling, mirrors, bar. The tables are draped in expensive linen (the cloths are alternate black and white); large napkins are bound with ribbons of black ottoman; and the black and gold table-lamps match the china's black and gold borders. Various exotic hangings add spots of colour, as does the sumptuous red and gold recess where you can sit and drink expensively before moving to your table. The atmosphere is a curious mix of the opulent and the discreet: this is a controlled environment, and it makes people feel rich. When you see the menu you can under- stand just why this is so important. Printed on thick white card, bordered tastefully in navy rather than black, the menu is char- acterised by a driving, fashionable eclectic- ism and dizzyingly steep prices. Starters cost as much here as the main course in an ordinarily expensive restaurant elsewhere; £8.25 will buy you a rather watery wild mushroom risotto, £9.95 a salad of fat, herb-sprinkled langoustines with rucola (rocket or arugla) and bacon. Portions are larger than the prevailing fashion decrees, and for this reason, and because the starters are surprisingly uninteresting, I would jump over the first courses and proceed with the main ones.
One of their star turns is the gyuniku teriyaki (£15.50) — fillet of beef marinaded in sherry, soy sauce, ginger and sugar, which is served in a mound of quivering slices on a huge black plate with a rose of pickled ginger, wasabi (the Japanese mus- tardy horseradish) and a glass of sake. Another of their dishes for which the black plate is pulled out is the Szechuan duck — much praised — which comes with a little dish of ground pepper (also £15.50). On plainer crockery, and for marginally plainer tastes, come the grilled sea-bass with horseradish and dill (£13.25), roast partridge with rosti (£14) and rack of lamb with rosemary (£13.95). The menu is a large one, and since there's hardly a cuisine missed out, you're bound to find some- thing you hanker after.
Puddings are unexceptional and hover around the £5 mark. The avocado ice- cream is, however, finer than it sounds, though not as exotic: honey and brown bread are important ingredients; the avo- cado simply lends colour.
The wine list is exorbitant — house wine will set you back £11, a bottle of Brouilly £18 — so I stuck with my Bloody Mary. By the time I'd given a tip (for excellent, old-fashioned service, admittedly), the bill was £90. Divide the figure in half, and you might come out without wincing. As it is, this is strictly for those who don't need to look at a bill before signing for it. And this is what they'd intended, of course, all along. Nigella Lawson
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