Simply sinfully rich
I can cook. It is rare for me to have no idea how the food I'm eating has been created - regardless of whether I would want to try it out at home. Even the semi-mystical Blumenthal/Adria molecular gastronomy is based on solid technique and common sense.
But the boudin of foie gras served to us in the newly relaunched Capital Restaurant bamboozled me.
Sure, I know what goes into a mousseline, how to assemble the boudin with its little core of precious liver; but I have no idea how Eric Chavot's kitchen managed to imbue this little sausage with such a blast of unadulterated foie flavour that it set the intensity dial trembling well above 11.
Chavot has two Michelin stars and has just won the sought-after Restaurateurs' Hotel Restaurant Of The Year award, an industry accolade voted for by 250 top chefs. And it's easy to understand why.
He deals in old-fashioned luxury married to contemporary nous: food that appears sinfully rich at first mouthful, but that you simply don't want to stop eating.
Our starters encapsulated this. One, a signature dish of crab lasagne - silky, whisper-thin discs of perfect pasta sandwiching sweet white crabmeat and bathed in a froth of langoustine cappuccino - was outrageously gorgeous, the bubbly sauce once again demonstrating Chavot's ability to wrest a supernatural amount of flavour from his ingredients. The other: fat langoustines sitting on little chunks of pork belly, so long-cooked in Chinese-influenced aromatics they had turned into gloriously meaty sweeties.
Sorry if this is teetering towards gastro-porn, but main courses were equally sexy. That boudin came as part of a musky, heady plateful: potatoes sticky with cream, cheese and bacon; a fricassee of weeny wild mushrooms; perfectly cooked, deboned quail, darkly glossy outside, pink inside, its individual sections wrapped round a ripely pungent farce of its own innards.
John Dory had been flawlessly roasted, its dense flesh succulent and plump; little pillows of gnocchi and a sauce diable co-starred.
Our one pudding delivered a frozen coffee parfait so immaculate that it looked like a designer Magnum, a rich soup of high quality chocolate, but a rather overcooked chocolate fondant. We had an enjoyable meander round an admirably kept cheese trolley.
All fabulous, then. Now to the (minor) gripes. The reason for the reopening is a hi-gloss refurb by Nina Campbell with wood by Linley. It all adds up to a caramel-coloured room of spectacular inoffensiveness, replacing the previous faded, chintzy eccentricity - an habituè pal described it as looking as though it had been designed by Charlotte from Sex And The City's picky ma-in-law, Bunny. And I preferred it that way. With the new incarnation, they're going for the kind of high-rolling clientele that the neighbouring Berkeley and Mandarin Oriental have been so successful at wooing, but, still, a shame.
Gripe Two: the â¡ la carte menu costs £55 for three courses with cheese charged at £9 extra, not unreasonable for this level of wizardry. We ordered only one pud and one cheese; the full £55 appeared on the bill with the cheese surcharged, which we thought a little mean. Can't imagine our fellow diners - all patina-ed with a veneer of extreme wealth - would have even noticed.
Otherwise, slightly over-solicitous service with its interruptions and fussings makes you feel like a harassed mother, constantly having to break off conversation. The wine list doesn't welcome the walletchallenged; despite restrained drinking our bill hit the double ton. But I'd forgive it all for that boudin.
Marina O'Loughlin
A three-course meal for two with wine, water and service costs about £180. 22-24 Basil Street SW3. Tel: 020 7589
5171. Tube: Knightsbridge
