Telephone: 020 7592 1600
Address: The Strand, London WC2
Dinner for two, including wine and service, £130.
I was 13 years old before I got to eat at The Savoy for the first time. I know. It's an extraordinary level of parental neglect, isn't it? Frankly, social services should have intervened. They should have laid on mini-buses to get the deprived kids of northwest London down to the River Room. But of course they didn't. Mine was the hunger that dare not speak its name. Actually, the truth is even darker than I'm letting on. Not only did my parents wait 13 years before taking me to The Savoy for the first time, they never - NEVER! - took me to The Savoy Grill. Shameful.
Oh well. Perhaps some things are worth waiting for. Last month Marcus Wareing, a partner and protégé of Gordon Ramsay's, and the chef behind London's Michelin-starred Petrus, took over The Savoy Grill. According to some in London, Wareing represented the Mongol hordes and the Visigoths rolled into one, a barbarian determined to rape and plunder a great London landmark. Sadly, because of my deprived childhood, I'm not one to judge. It may well have been a national institution. Then again, so is Broadmoor, and I wouldn't want to go there for dinner either.
All I can say is that Wareing's Savoy Grill is now a fabulous place to eat - a class act from start to finish. I love the light, wood-paneled walls and the chequer-board carpet, the striped banquettes and the subtle gold ceiling. He has created a serious, buzzy, top-end restaurant, full of the glamorous chatter that you want from the word 'Savoy'. Look, Ned Sherrin was there the night I went, and you can't get much more glamorous than that.
It would be pushing it to call this affordable glamour for, when you throw in all the extras and plunder even the lower reaches of the enthusiastically priced wine list, the bill will mount up. A quick plea for sanity: restaurants at this level should seriously consider shoving a couple of 10 quid bottles on the list. They can be certain that 99.9 per cent of the clientele won't order them for fear of looking like cheapskates. (Even the cheapest will only ever do what I often do, and order the second cheapest.)
Yet, by the inclusion of bargains, the restaurant will have made themselves look terribly democratic. At the moment The Savoy Grill wine list is to democracy what, well, Robert Mugabe is to democracy. Nevertheless the cost of food - £35 for three courses in the evening, £21 at lunchtime - does seem fair for a top-flight chef doing his thing. The key here is simplicity, despite the fact that dishes read more complicated than they eat. For example my starter of 'Hand-dived scallops with fresh pea purée, tomato confit and a mint-infused velouté' is essentially scallops and minted peas. The little scraps of tomato add colour and acidity.The separation of pea and velouté shows care. But it still comes down to those two clean, fresh flavours on the plate. I liked it. A lot.
My companion began with slow-cooked fillets of rainbow trout with soft braised fennel hearts and pieces of avocado which were bravely, I thought, not quite ripe and had an encouraging bite. It was a dish of delicate flavours and contrasted textures. Wareing has gone on the record as saying he wants to bring theatre back to The Savoy (and I don't think he meant getting Ned Sherrin to eat there). Accordingly, you can get them to slice gravlax from the trolley at your table or, as we did, order the Chateaubriand for two, which is carved in front of you. I like both Wareing's willingness to do this old stager, and his ability to do it well. It was a fine piece of meat, served pink as requested, with a pile of intense 'braised' choucroute, wild mushrooms and a Madeira truffle sauce that had me wiping my plate with my finger. (Sadly, because of my deprived childhood, I have no manners.)
I finished with a millefeuille of French meringue and pistachio ice cream which was the only letdown. The meringues were too crisp and the whole too cold, as if it had passed the afternoon in the freezer. But my companion's pink-champagne parfait with melon sorbet was a fine palette cleanser.
Service was attentive without being hurried. Wines, as I say, aren't cheap. We ordered two of the cheapest halves, and it cost us £35. Two mint teas with petits fours cost a tenner. But it was nice tea and they were good chocolates. Oh well. Glamour clearly costs. And The Savoy is where you start paying.
