Telephone: 020 7437 9933
Address: 29-30 Old Burlington Street, London W1
Dinner for two, with wine and service, £120
Imagine, for a moment, that you are the Michelin-starred chef of a new and expensive - £60-a-head expensive - restaurant in London's Piccadilly. It is a desperately quiet winter's evening and only four tables in a dining room capable of seating 110 people are occupied. The good news is that one of those is a table of 10.
Pretty soon that table makes a request, via the waiters. Among their party is one 13-year-old chap with simpler tastes who might be a little overwhelmed by the complexities of some of the creations on the menu. Would it be possible to serve a bowl full of the pasta, which appears as a part of another dish, just for him? So, what are you going to do? If you are Gary Hollihead, chef at the newly opened Embassy in London's West End, I know exactly what you'll do, because I was sitting only a few feet away from that table of 10 when it happened. You refuse.
Tom Goddard had booked the table for a dinner to celebrate the 18th birthday of his daughter Orla. Each of his three children had brought a friend, so it was that all too rare thing: a table of young people. Mr Goddard had checked the menu beforehand, thought it appropriate and had concluded that the pasta which appears alongside the lobster Newburg (a classic but very rich dish in which the seafood is cooked with brandy and marsala) would suit his son Christopher.
He made his request. The waiter went away, returned and said the chef wouldn't do it. He suggested his son order the steak (hardly a simple dish in itself; it was served with a rich bourguignon sauce). Mr Goddard was, rightly, unimpressed. He was prepared to spend £1,000 on this meal. And it wasn't as if they all wanted to go off menu. As he said to the waiter, 'It's hardly a can-do mentality, is it?' He asked the chef to come out and discuss the issue. The waiter went away and then returned, saying, 'The chef is too busy.' This was odd as I'd seen Hollihead out in the dining room just minutes before. In any case, I'd hate to see how busy he would be if, say, six tables were occupied instead of just four.
Mr Goddard sent back a further message: either we come to some agreement or my family is leaving. The chef still refused to come out. And so, as one, more than half that evening's clientele got up and left. If I hadn't been such a wuss I would have stood up and applauded. (Instead I slipped Mr Goddard my phone number as he departed and we later talked.)
Who the hell does Hollihead think he is? Sure, we go to restaurants to eat the food cooked there but, at the same time, they are in the business of service. When dinner costs as much as it does at the Embassy that's even more true, not less. Great chefs are not doing us a favour by cooking; we are doing them a favour by going to their restaurants. Had this request been made at a restaurant in the States there would not have been a moment's hesitation. Sadly, in this country, we still do not understand what the word 'service' means. 'I found it astounding that he wouldn't even come out and see me,' Mr Goddard said a few days later. 'And I also hated the way that young people can be treated with such disdain.'
In the event, the Goddards found a table at Teatro, where, Mr Goddard says, they had a fabulous time. (Incidentally, Tom Goddard is chief executive, Europe, of the media giant Viacom, which has its offices nearby. So, that night, Hollihead threw away not just a one-off £1,000, but thousands more in potential corporate business.)
We, too, were later the victims of the heavy-handed, imperious kitchen at the Embassy, albeit in a smaller way. It took three requests and a seemingly endless wait to get more bread. The reason: it wouldn't be allowed out of the kitchen until it had been warmed up. I don't know about you but when I ask for bread it's because I've spotted something I want to mop and if I want to mop I want to mop now, not in five minutes' time. One result of this was that the charming and efficient waiters were suddenly made to look slack and uncaring.
As ever with piss-poor service, it simply detracts from the main event: the food. Here, Hollihead is doing himself real damage because the food itself is really very good indeed. The menu makes a virtue of French classics done as well as they can be done. A starter of eggs en cocotte came with perfectly seared chicken livers, mushrooms and an outrageously rich, oniony Madeira jus. A crisp boudin blanc was served with a grand stew of creamed cabbage and bacon. A main course fillet of halibut, just crisp about the edges, came with delicate calamari and a bouillabaisse sauce that tasted ripely of the ocean.
As for that steak, it was a wonderful piece of meat, treated - unlike the customers - with utmost respect. For my pudding I chose a furiously moreish crêpe suzette, because I thought it a museum piece whose like would never again be seen.
The wine list has been intelligently designed with about a third of the bottles under £20 and 15 choices by the glass. As for the decor, it mirrors the food, being opulent and romantic in a gentle 30s ocean-liner style, with silvered screens and lightly gilded ceilings in shades of caramel.
But this is not what stays with me from my night at the Embassy. Instead, it is the moment when the Goddard family rose to their feet and told the waiter what the chef could do with his menu. I wish that more of us would do the same.
Contact Jay Rayner on jay.rayner@observer.co.uk.
