Fay Maschler reviews Sea Containers at Mondrian London

The menu would not look out of place at a mildly ambitious gastropub and the wine list gives you reason to weep over both price and content — but the kitchen will almost certainly shake down, says Fay Maschler
Fay Maschler8 July 2015

The curve of a ceiling-height ship’s hull fashioned in panels of beaten copper swoops through the reception area of Mondrian London, rounds a corner and finishes in the open kitchen of Sea Containers, the hotel’s restaurant. It is an intrepid design trope conceived by clever Tom Dixon and fair takes your breath away.

In case the Thames outside, the ownership by the American hotel company Morgans and the history of Sea Containers House by Blackfriars Bridge being originally designed by Baltimore-born Warren Platner — also responsible for Windows on the World at the top of the Twin Towers in New York — haven’t pointed up transatlantic connections, there is a large model of the liner RMS Queen Mary in a glass display case in the foyer. The restaurant’s executive chef, Seamus Mullen, is commuting from Tertulia and El Colmado, his Spanish restaurant and tapas bar in Manhattan.

What with Berners Tavern at the London Edition hotel — a collaboration between Marriott and Ian Schrager — Hoi Polloi at Ace Hotel in Shoreditch, Chiltern Firehouse (the first André Balazs hotel in London), and now Sea Containers in the first Mondrian brand outside the US, a pattern could be said to be emerging. Hotels have become playgrounds with echt chefs, the bedrooms almost the least crucial element.

The bar is always important and here there is a reservations-only rooftop drinking area, and on the ground floor Dandelyan, where Ryan Chetiyawardana, founder of White Lyan in Hoxton, “the bar with no ice”, dispenses potions whereby botany shades into lotus-eating.

The best place to be seated in the restaurant is beside the glass walls giving onto Queen’s Walk — part of the Thames Path. Runners seemingly exercising on the customers’ behalf stream by oblivious and the view across the water to the north bank is a constant diversionary pleasure. Look at that utterly graceful, spotlit church spire. Is it Wren’s St Bride’s? I think so.

The menu with divisions of Small Plates, Larger Dishes, Dishes for the Table, Raw, Flatbreads, Market Salads and Accompaniments and the wearisome counsel that the “farm-to-table” food will be sent out from the kitchen when it is ready is a letdown. The list would not look out of place at a mildly ambitious gastropub.

We are eating dinner on the first night of public service. Unsporting, I know, but put it down to me booking from Greece and wanting to come back straight to where the action is. Our waitress, actually manageress, Brie — whom one of us remembers from Smokehouse in Islington — rattles quickly through the wretched “concept” and responds to requests with the brilliant phrase: “I can make that happen.” I believe her. In good looks and style she reminds me of Joan Crawford in Mildred Pierce.

Four of us make a mess of the recommended sharing of what comprises our first course. There isn’t enough house-made ricotta, a yoghurty cream bolstered by Neal’s Yard ricotta with shaved root vegetables and toasted seeds; charred eggplant with mint labneh, dates (nice ones) and black and white sesame seeds; celeriac and grilled octopus with peas, watercress and olives; and a sort of wreath of fish and shellfish ceviche topped with waving micro herbs to go around. No bread has been brought to the table — a deliberate omission — so we fall on the toast served with the ricotta and tear it apart.

Staring at the menu, my part-Irish friend Joe is muttering: “F**k me, f**k me, there are no potatoes.” He is right. This is a relentlessly low-carb assembly with none of the bread that, for me, spells out hospitality, and not a potato in sight, not even in the Accompaniments.

At lunch three days later my completely Irish companion Oisin asks for potatoes to go with his main course order of grilled monkfish. Silky mash arrives and it is a star of the meal, vying for prominence with the marinated raw scallops (just the one, thinly sliced, I suspect) in potent Arbequina olive oil and the faultless dessert of prune and Armagnac clafoutis (a batter pudding hard to pull off) with a jug of textbook vanilla custard. Other dishes are over-salted — lamb meatballs like late-night doner and the aforementioned monkfish puckering the mouth. The wine list, like so many hotel wine lists, gives you reason to weep over both price and content.

Why three stars? Well, the chicken, the clafoutis and also an icebox gingerbread sandwich cake, Canadian Brie (the manageress), handy proximity to Tate Modern and the Southbank arts complex, the charming staff, whose batteries will soon run out so that they will stop saying “How has your day been so far?” and “Have a nice rest of the day”, the almost certainty that the kitchen will shake down and Tom Dixon’s exhilarating, derring-do design.

Mondrian London, 20 Upper Ground, SE1 (020 3747 1000, mondrianlondon.com). Open for lunch and dinner daily, noon-midnight. A la carte, a meal for two with wine, about £140 including 12.5per cent service.

Fay Maschler's latest restaurant reviews

1/11

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in