Telephone: 020 7629 8888
Address: Park Lane, London W1
Dim sum for two, including service, £39.
The Dorchester Hotel on London's Park Lane is not, on the face of it, the place for those embracing thrifty living. Even the air is richer here. Excess is everywhere. At one end of the long bejewelled lobby, for example, they have a chamber called the Gold Room which, given the way the rest of the place is already smeared in the precious yellow stuff, boggles the mind. At the Dorchester, they have never met a cornice that wasn't worth gilding. It's as if King Midas had developed Tourette syndrome and then skittered about the place, anxiously rapping his fingertips against any surface he could see.
Ah, but even here there are bargains to be had, of a sort. At the far end of the lobby is the Oriental, the only Chinese restaurant in Britain to boast a Michelin star, which also happens to be the most expensive in the country. Starters go from £10 to £46 without pausing for breath. Main courses loiter with intent to do grievous bodily harm to your wallet at around the £25 mark.
No meal at the Oriental will cost you less than £75 a head.
Unless, that is, you go at lunchtime and order the newly introduced dim sum menus. There are two of them. The first, at £17, includes soup, four sets of dumplings, fried rice and tea. The second, at £22, throws in an additional duck stir-fry and a pudding. Both prices include service. The trick, if there are two of you, is to order one of each, because the two additional dishes on the second menu are big enough to share. (We're talking thrift here; needs must.)
The great thing is that, whatever you order, you still get the full-on Michelin bow, curtsey and dash: the boys in their cummerbunds; the girls in their long silky skirts. The sweet solicitations, which make a change from the muttered Cantonese abuse in nearby Chinatown. I will admit that the waiters' insistence on referring to my companion and me as 'gents' was disconcerting. It made us feel as if we were an overly frequented public convenience round the back of Rotherham bus station.
That aside, you also get the room which, compared to the rest of the hotel, is almost a model of restraint. Downstairs is a set of private rooms in the deepest of primary colours. Only the main upstairs area, reached through a grand, vaulting space big enough for a Bond villain, is a more relaxed shade of pale. It is dotted with tables so large you could be forgiven for wanting binoculars to spot your mate on the other side.
Finally you get the food, which is delicious: not surprising or innovative exactly, but clean and precise. Sweetcorn and crabmeat soup to start, for example, was hardly a reinterpretation of the classic. But the broth was thick without being gelatinous, and there were sturdy chunks of real crab in there rather than the fakery of crabsticks. Of the dim sum, the deep-fried mashed taro dumplings were the stars, with their frizzy bird's-nest casing and unctuous meaty mash inside; sweet barbecued chicken came in a rich, glazed puff pastry that stuck to the teeth. Both the prawn and water chestnut dumplings and the steamed scallop parcels had the bite of achingly fresh seafood.
The wok-fried duck with lychee and pineapple from the £22 menu was rich without being too sweet, and a mango pudding, much like a sour blancmange with cubes of fruit, was soothing. And the bill, including service, was £39. OK, so it's not the cheapest lunch in the world. But at the Dorchester, where £39 won't even get you breakfast for two, it amounts to a steal.
