An invitation to lunch at Caviar Kaspia was, once upon a time,
an offer you simply didn't refuse. Providing, of
course, that the bill was on someone else.
Because caviar, smeared on blinis or piled
high on baked potatoes, sure didn't come cheap. There may
have been other things on the menu, but no one paid them much heed.
This was all about lashings of the black stuff.
Caviar Kaspia's signature baked potato and caviar: ‘there are few better dishes on earth…only the price, at just under £150, is ridiculous'
Caviar Kaspia popped her final tin about two decades back.
And that site, hidden down a smart Mayfair mews, was taken over by Gavin Rankin (who used to be the boss), and transformed
into the brilliant Bellamy's. It prospers to this day.
Kaspia, on the other hand, went quiet. Until last year,
when she reopened as a members' club in another Mayfair backstreet.
But a £2,000 a year membership fee proved hard to swallow, meaning the doors were opened to the
great unwashed.
Which is how we find ourselves sitting in a rather handsome -
albeit near empty - dining room, lusciously lavish, under the stern gaze of a stern painting of a very stern man. The soft, crepuscular gloom is broken up by
the glare of table lamps, indecorously bright, while a loud soundtrack
of indolent, indeterminate beats throbs in the background.
The whole place is scented with gilded ennui.
Our fellow diners are two young South Korean women of
pale, luminescent beauty, clad in diaphanous couture.
They don't speak, rather communicate entirely via camera phone.
Pose, click, check, filter, post. Immaculate waiters hover
in the shadows.
We sip ice-cold vodka, and eat a £77 caviar and
smoked-salmon Kaspia croque monsieur that tastes far better than it
ought to. Next door, a large table fills with a glut of the noisily, glossily confident.
We're looked after by a wonderful French lady of such effervescent charm and charisma that had she
burst into an impromptu performance of ‘Willkommen', we would have barely blinked.
Baked potatoes, skin as crisp as parchment, insides whipped savagely hard with butter and sour cream, are a study in tuber art.
A cool jet-black splodge of oscietra caviar, gently saline, raises them to the sublime.
Only the price, at just under £150 each, is ridiculous.
But there are few better dishes on earth. I'd eat this every day if I could.
But I can't. Obviously. That's the problem with caviar.
One taste is never enough.
About £200 per head. Caviar Kaspia, 1a Chesterfield Street,
London W1; caviarkaspialondon.com
★★★★✩
My favourite luxury dishes
Tom's pick of the best places to splash the culinary cash in LondonTom's pick of the best places to splash the culinary cash in London
The Ritz
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aplomb (£62): Arts de la Table is edible theatre at its most delectable.
theritzlondon.com
Otto's
Come to this classic French restaurant for the canard or homard à la presse (£150-£220 per
person); stay for beef tartare (£42), foie gras (£22) and poulet de bresse rôti (£190, two courses).
ottos-restaurant.com
Sushi Kanesaka
Piscine perfection comes at an eye-watering £420 per person, sans booze.
But this 13-seat sushi bar shows omakase dining at its very finest.
dorchestercollection.com
Min Jiang
The dim sum is some of the best in town. But don't miss the wood-fired Beijing duck (£98) - crisp skin first, then two servings of the meat.
Superb.
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Dienstag, 03. Dezember 2024 18:27
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