Jay Rayner 

Jean-Georges at the Connaught, London: ‘The prices are stupid’ – restaurant review

Jean-Georges Vongerichten marries classic French and Asian flavours like no one else, writes Jay Rayner. But he hits you hard in the wallet
  
  

We’re in the money: Jean-Georges at the Connaught.
We’re in the money: Jean-Georges at the Connaught. Photograph: Antonio Olmos/The Observer

Jean-Georges at the Connaught, Carlos Place, London W1K 2AL (020 7107 8861). Full meal for two, including drinks and service: £175 - £275

It’s the ease with which they do it, this blazered and Louboutined throng. With an airy wave of a manicured hand they order a £29 pizza as if it was the most normal thing in the world; as if it wasn’t an outrageous act, which deserved to be prosecuted as a crime against good sense.

Here too am I, preparing to be just like them. Do I need to be here? I suppose not. There’s always another place that could be reviewed. I could be purring over some gap year traveller’s take on the obscure foods of Cambodia. But sod that. The truth is, I very much want to be here. The newly opened restaurant on the conservatory side of the Connaught hotel with its stained-glass windows like sweet-wrappers and its irritatingly low, badly engineered tables, belongs to Alsatian-American chef Jean-Georges Vongerichten. And I like him.

I try to avoid the flouncier excess of chef worship and napkin sniffing, but with Vongerichten I fail. I have spent atrocious amounts of my own money at his flagship high-end restaurant in New York, simply called Jean-Georges, chasing the moment. Other chefs have attempted to marry French classical cooking with Asian flavours. Vongerichten has succeeded. He has a blissful way with acidity and chilli heat. One of the single best mouthfuls I have ever eaten is his: an oblong of black bread, spread with cold salted butter, topped with a single raw sea urchin and on top of that, a ring of pickled jalapeño. Reminisce. And then breathe. The room is high-windowed and populated with characters written by Tom Wolfe, those women in their sunglasses like hub caps. Unfortunately, it is in the base of the Trump Tower. That used to be hilarious. Now it isn’t.

The curious thing is that while my love for Jean-Georges New York remains undiminished, I have always been disappointed by his diffusion lines. I actively hated Spice Market in Leicester Square, with its mushy overpriced violation of a laksa. ABC Kitchen in New York, which tried hard to work the peasanty farm-to-table vibe, was clumsy. And now here he is with this new place in the Connaught called, bravely, Jean-Georges, as if it were a direct sibling of the Trump Tower site.

To be fair the prices here are of a similar magnitude. They are stupid in the way Donald Trump is stupid. It’s a kind of aggressive stupidity. The cheapest bottle of wine is £39. I ask the sommelier if that really was the cheapest they could find. “This is Mayfair,” he says. “You will find nothing cheaper here.” Not only is this not true of Mayfair; nearby Sexy Fish and Scott’s have bottles in the £20s. It’s not even true of the same building. On the other side of the Connaught, Hélène Darroze’s restaurant has a cheaper bottle.

For this money, you get a symphony of grey and battalions of waiters who don’t talk to each other. One tells us the kitchen is going to send out a caviar freebie. I decline it. Only what we order, please. They send it anyway. Sharply, I send it back. It’s that kind of place: in this dining room you have to be aggressive to avoid being pelted with caviar. Really, people, it’s hell out there.

But sit back for a moment, and try to imagine that you are there only as eye-candy; as the lucky, depilated guest who will never see inside the paper folder holding the bill. What do you get? Butter is good, big on buttercup yellow, whipped fats and salt crystals, though the accompanying sourdough is tired, with a soft crust. But don’t pout too much about that my love, because look: here are warm beignets of Comté cheese and black truffle to make things better. So that’s mini doughnuts of seriously pokey cheese and truffle dredged through the deep fat fryer? Get in.

One starter, tuna tartare on avocado with a spicy ginger sauce, is a Vongerichten classic. In New York the tuna comes as ribbons. At Spice Market they seemed to have put it through the blender. Here it’s a halfway house. There is bite to the tuna. What matters is the broth: a liquor full of depth and acidity, fire and vivacity. It is all there. By contrast salmon sushi “improved” by deep frying the lozenges of rice is no improvement at all. It’s all kinds of wrongness in four easy mouthfuls.

We order the fontina cheese and black truffle pizza as a kind of mid-course. It is small; Domino’s still win the “feel the width” contest. But it is also rather beautiful on its metal frame. There is a blistered crust, a shade of granite that co-ordinates nicely with the other guests’ pallor, and then there’s the hot cheese, drawing out to ribbons as you lift each piece. The truffle comes in waves. It’s preposterous, of course, the item I will be eating as western civilisation collapses. But ask me if I could image eating it again and sheepishly, I would say yes: if I was drunk enough in Mayfair, I would come here and drop the stupid money. And in the morning, I would hate myself. But we’ve all been there, eh?

The £25 hamburger would make me hate myself more. It’s served medium rare if you wish, despite Westminster Council’s threat of legal hellfire should you do so. There’s black truffle mayo, because any amount of black truffle justifies a price tag. There’s a slab of stinky Somerset brie and some pickles. Pull out a bit of the beef and it turns out to have something to say for itself, but it’s silenced by the haughty, bellowing company. By comparison a dish of two fat fillets of John Dory, with a fiery ginger chilli dressing, almost feels like good value at £28. It isn’t.

For dessert, somebody has made a leaf out of chocolate, because playing with food is required at £12 a pop. They’ve filled it with caramel and nuts. It’s a Snickers for someone who wouldn’t dream of being seen eating one. The other dish brings meringue and lime and raspberry and is rather lovely. Back home I’m asked how dinner was. I say it was really nice at £120 for two. “Unfortunately, it cost £275.” Oh, and that was after they remembered to put on the two glasses of champagne they had somehow forgotten. Jean-Georges, my friend, there are still things about you I love very much. But boy, do you make it tough.

Jay’s news bites

■ If £25 for a glass of champagne is too rich for your blood, where else to go? The best deal in the capital I’ve found is at The Heights, the bar on the 15th floor of the St George’s Hotel by BBC Broadcasting House. A glass will cost £8.90. Plus you get one of London’s great secrets: an astonishing view across the capital, presided over by lovely staff.

■ Any news involving legendary Edinburgh restaurateur David Ramsden is worth reporting. His bistro- come-shambolic meeting house, The Dogs, has long been an institution in the city. Now he’s launching a sibling, The Fat Pony, on Bread Street. It’s a wine bar with small plates, including rabbit terrine with pistachio and toast, and pork belly with ginger and soy (thefatpony.com).

■ File this under ‘It’s the thought that counts.’ Currently, the most gifted grocery item at Amazon – ahead of Bollinger and a sweetie assortment – is a 5-litre bottle of Golden Swan White Vinegar. According to the reviews it’s being used to remove limescale and kill weeds.

Email Jay at jay.rayner@observer.co.uk or follow him on Twitter @jayrayner1

 

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