RESTAURANTS AS THEATRE
DISTINCT POSSIBILITIES
Le Caprice and the Savoy
This is the first of a new feature in which vari- ous writers discuss that phenomenon of the 1990s — restaurants which are as much places of entertainment as places to eat. Our restaurant critic, David Fingleton, will contin- ue to review food.
IT seems extraordinary that in nearly 2,000 years of hype no one has ever mentioned the food in heaven. There was the spectacular stunt with the loaves and the fishes and after that zilch. We could spend our entire lives striving to get there only to find that the restaurants are dodgy — there has always been something ominous about the prolifer- ation of those golden arches. And what about the booking policy? Eternity is a long time to wait for a table. Or one might arrive in the particular aeon when Korean food is fashionable. On balance my expectations are not great; the engraving on my headstone will read: 'I'd rather be in Le Caprice.'
Ever since I was a child Le Caprice has been synonymous with indescribable glam- our. I don't really see the point of restau- rants unless they are glamorous, otherwise one might just as well eat at home. Home for me at the age of seven was frequently Arlington House, the sleek apartment block of which Le Caprice is part, where my godmother had a flat. Fairytale charac- ters like Margot Fonteyn and Nubar Gul- benkian used to go to the restaurant with its blood-red banquettes, Fonteyn parking her little black Mini with gold basketweave panels outside the door. I was fascinated; if this was the world beyond Nanny, it had distinct possibilities.
Le Caprice then fell off the edge of the known restaurant world until the beginning of the Eighties, when Jeremy King and Christopher Corbin reinvented it with a success that has lasted nearly 20 years. It's a success that has blessedly transcended fash- ion, although Le Caprice remains acutely fashionable, and that success owes every- thing to consistency. In a London in which restaurants now open on a daily basis, with hideous gimmicks like unisex lavatories and Moroccan cuisine, there is nothing more reassuring than a Caprice fish cake. The eggs Benedict — eggs perfectly poached, hollandaise not too tart — are heaven on earth and the maitre d' is called Jesus. `Jesus can always get me a table' has a cer- tain cadence.
It is probably about 2 a.m. in London's great restaurant party, and it must be dawn- ing on some who've gambled on the appar- ent inability of anybody to cook any more that the music is about to stop. For some inexplicable reason the bill for two has made a quantum leap to £94 and that way mad- ness lies. One is going out to eat, a process intended to keep body and soul together, not to render one's bank account anorexic. And it's absolutely no good saying that only the insanely wealthy eat out; everyone eats out because it's easier to meet in a restau- rant with people you like, to eat what you like and leave when you like, than to be stranded in a Delia Smith time warp sitting next to a property dealer at dinner in a knock-through kitchen in Fulham.
All of which reinforces how very soothing Le Caprice and its sister restaurant, the Ivy, are. Now is the time for reassuring old favourites, for going out in the utter confi- dence that lunch or dinner is going to be a treat. Ned Sherrin always decides what he's going to have in the taxi on the way there (usually steak tartare); Keith Waterhouse is an eggs-Benedict-and-a-bottle-of-cham- pagne man; Mariella Frostrup is a Caesar salad girl. Will there be Caesar salad this good (just the right amount of anchovy) in heaven, and will it be tossed by Caesar? I think we have a right to know. Personally I should feel extraordinarily deprived without the risotto of butternut squash, so creamy and comforting and just a little sweet, and the seared yellow-fin tuna with spiced lentils. The words seared, tuna and lentil seem hor- ribly affected but Le Caprice has been cook- ing this with understated excellence for some time. In the brittle culture of the celebrity chef this is a restaurant that is about its food, not the person who cooks it or whether it's the latest culinary thing. What King and Corbin strive for with quiet professionalism is excellence at grilled breast of corn-fed chicken level and a staff who are unobtru- sively nice to people who eat with them (an attitude as rare as gulls' eggs these days). There is nothing wrong with any of this.
Another old favourite has always been the Savoy for breakfast. When, at 7 a.m., our Air India plane was delayed by seven hours on our honeymoon, I saw my hus- band, a mild-mannered man, transformed into Superman at the check-in desk. 'I want a chauffeur-driven limousine to take me to the Savoy immediately,' he thundered. And lo, it appeared. I've never been so impressed. Where else would we go on the morning of the Countryside March than back to the heavenly restaurant with its views over the Thames (and, more impor- tantly, the start of the march so one didn't have to queue)? Oh dear. I'm all for consis- tency but even breakfast, that most redoubtable of meals, has changed since I was married. It simply isn't good enough to have flaccid bacon oozing strange white scum, or sausages that look like something laid on a pavement by a lurcher. Nor is it remotely convincing to serve tinned mush- rooms to Nicholas Soames, Lord Lloyd- Webber, Lord Tebbit and the Duke of Westminster, who probably know a field mushroom when they see one.
The Countryside March was hardly a well-kept secret — Robin Hanbury-Teni- son was having breakfast for the troops in the River Room — yet the staff seemed utterly bemused by the number of people inconsiderately making arcane requests for coffee and toast. Three-quarters of an hour for bacon and egg (£18.95) was a nonsense, exaggerated by the rapidity with which the waiter produced a bottle of champagne: let's pacify the punters so they don't squawk. Not even Mark Andreae, MFH of the Hampshire Hunt, was brave enough to have the kipper or the poached haddock, but where on a breakfast menu in 1998 are hash browns, crisp bacon, waffles and pitchers of Bloody Mary?
It's back to Le Caprice and their Sunday brunch for all that. The good news, of course, is that King and Corbin have bought Sheekey's, so a blissful new fish restaurant is on track. Meanwhile, on very careful consideration, I think the fish cake is better than sex. Heaven can wait.
Victoria Mather
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