A vehicle for a chef of undoubted talent, this ostentatious Mayfair ‘brasserie’ offers perfectly acceptable food and service but on our early-days visit any sort of excitement was signally lacking.
Eric Chavot cooked at Knightsbridge’s Capital Hotel for a decade (ending in 2009). This really tells you everything you need to know about his skills and dedication, as no other hotel in town has shown quite the same determination, over the long haul, to keep its dining room in the city’s very first rank.
Now he’s popped up again, trading under his own name at Mayfair’s Westbury Hotel. Odd in a way – the hotel already has an excellent, if too little-known, fine-dining room, presided over by Marcus Wareing-protégé Alyn Williams. The space for Chavot is the large and ornate street-entrance dining room formerly known as the Gallery.
Though the life of the previous incarnation was quite short, so much money had been lavished on its fit-out that they’ve decided to leave the interior substantially as it was. For our taste, the impression is still that of dining at the finest hotel in Ruritania – opulent, certainly, but not cosy or stylish. Fellow lunchers on the day of our visit seemed largely to be hedgies; wealth, it seems, does not necessarily equate to glamour.
The establishment is touted as a brasserie, by implication a Gallic one, but it isn’t really. The menu lacks many obvious staples, and the presentation of oysters, for example, is plain wrong. How can they present them other than nestling in a beguiling bed of ice, ideally on a stand? An unadorned china plate, albeit with six little subdivisions, is a sad and lazy substitute. And what about the bread, which is charged for? Two types were presented: both seemingly home-made’ by someone who had not yet quite mastered the oven.
Other reviewers have tended, in not invariably, to find main courses the highlight of the cooking here, and a dish such as duckling à l’orange with endives was notably elegantly plated and tasty too, if perhaps rather – like the whole concept – lacking heart. Puddings, on the other hand, have not been seen as a strong point, but we enjoyed our rum baba, and the coffee was fine, if nothing remarkable.
Service kicked off on the wrong note, but presumably the establishment believes the revenue derived from the ‘still or sparking’ force outweighs the poor impression it gives. Otherwise, though, there was nothing to complain about, and the solicitous maître d’ asked several times if everything was OK. Well, it was all broadly acceptable, but he never asked the key question: why on earth would you ever come back?
