The Savoy Grill used to be one of those restaurants hallowed by time and observance, the province and playground of men, and the occasional woman, who wore pinstripe suiting, who filled their mouths with slices of rare beef from the carving trolley and cigars the size of 16-inch guns on a battleship. They were waited on by old codgers dressed in black tailcoats and they talked about money as freely as they spent it. But that has all changed except, maybe, the spending money bit.
It may seem odd - it certainly seems odd to me - but Gordon Ramsay is emerging as the Robespierre of the London restaurant scene: radical to the point of revolutionary. He put fizz, and Mark Sergeant, into the kitchen at Claridge's. He put Angela Hartnett into the kitchens of the Connaught. He made a Boxwood Cafe of what used to be Vong at the Berkeley. And now yet another of his proteges, Marcus Wareing, has become chef-in-residence at the Savoy Grill.
Wareing's arrival seems to have had an even more electrifying effect on the clientele than it has on the critics, who have already made their pilgrimage. The night that Tucker, Tod and I turned up for dinner, the discreetly updated, handsome, panelled dining room was jumping, not simply with pinstriped panjandrums, but with coveys of what looked like shirtsleeved sales managers, grazing tourists and couples with matters other than high finance or monthly figures on their minds. The tables were turning with the regularity of a turnstile at a football ground. Their pleasure was palpable. I wish I could say that mine was, too.
Call me old-fashioned - well, I am - but when I'm paying £120 a head for food and bevvies, I expect the waiters to remember who ordered which dish, something that the brigade attending us failed to do three times. I exempt the sommeliers from any criticism. At that price, I also expect serious food with serious flavours, for, although it keeps up the tradition of omelette Arnold Bennett, grilled dover sole and pudding trolley, the Savoy Grill has positioned itself as a serious restaurant.
Unfortunately, the food was far from serious. It wasn't frivolous, which would have been forgivable, but tasteless, which wasn't. It didn't help that my first two dishes - a terrine of rabbit loin and shoulder with roasted hazelnuts, confit leeks and hazelnut dressing, and then roast veal cutlet with caramelised root vegetable, creamed truffle pomme purée and veal jus - were seriously under-seasoned, and quite possibly not seasoned at all. It didn't help, either, that the rabbit in the terrine was so tender as to be actually soft, and curiously similar in texture to the leeks, or that the flavours of both were utterly eclipsed by that of the hazelnuts, which I don't think was the point of the dish; or that the veal chop was rather less cooked than the pink that I had been advised and would have been happy with; there is a difference between pink and raw.
Tucker's velouté of baby navet (turnip) with roasted Scottish langoustines and baby gem lettuce would have been another taste-free zone had it not been for the superb langoustines. Cooked lettuce is a difficult ingredient, with a tendency to become both slippery and floppily resistant to even the fiercest gnashing. And the velouté was a clodhopping version of something that should have been a sensation of delicate sensuality.
On the other hand, Tod's braised pork belly with sautéed jerusalem artichoke, braised red onions, artichoke purée and apple sauce was the other way around: a refined edition of a hearty original. The baked pithiviers of forest mushrooms and foie gras with sauce diable that preceded it was rich, authoritative and technically impeccable. Tucker, however, said his braised fillet of brill, braised fennel hearts, sautéed baby squid with chervil vinaigrette and fennel velouté "wasn't at all nice".
There wasn't much technically wrong with the dishes themselves, and certainly no lapses in good taste. In a way, that was the problem - there wasn't much taste at all. Too many dishes were curiously bland, dull even, just the kind of food that middle-aged people with middle-of-the-road tastes would find acceptable. It's a pity, because I can't help feeling that Wareing is probably a more interesting chef than the Savoy Grill lets him be, and perhaps a slight generosity in my marking this week reflects that - that said, I would expect somewhere like this to be at the 17-point mark, at least.
Looking around, I could see there weren't many people in agreement with me. Faces were flushed with wellbeing and gratification and, it may be argued, that is the point. Reluctantly, I would have to concede that it is, in terms of a good night out, but it is a glum reflection on the sophistication and taste of the eating public if the food at the Savoy Grill actually represents the acme of sophisticated eating for so many. In truth, it is limited, boring and tediously traditional.
· Telephone 020-7592 1600. Address Strand, London WC2. Open Lunch, 12 noon-2.45pm (3pm, Sat & Sun), dinner, 5.45-11pm (6-10.30pm, Sat & Sun). Menus Lunch, £25 for three courses; pre-theatre, £30 for three courses; dinner, £40 for three courses; tasting menu, £50. Wheelchair access & WC.
