Is This The Best Hotel Restaurant In London? We Have Thoughts
There aren’t many chefs in the world who sign on the bottom line of a contract to open a restaurant and it gets the fanfare of a football transfer, but Mauro Colagreco’s takeover at Raffles London at The OWO was one. The hotel opening itself was already a big deal, a first London outpost from the historic Singaporean luxury hotel group set within the Old War Offices.
Typically, hotel restaurants are a tough sell for anyone not actually staying there and in possession of a heavy discount, but if you’re putting a restaurant into the same building where D-Day was planned, you’re going to do things a little differently.
What sets it apart
Colagreco, the Argentinian superstar chef behind the three-Michelin-starred and best restaurant in the world of 2019 Mirazur, signed on for three restaurants, like the way Christopher Nolan might sign to Warner Bros in a three-picture deal.
There’s the more casual, glitzy Saison and the private Mauro’s Table, but if the restaurant world operated on the same ‘one for you, one of me’ type system, then the eponymous Mauro Colagreco restaurant was the one for him: promising a place where he could explore the limits of his own creativity and the local produce of the British Isles (so-called hyper-seasonality is one of the guiding principles of his cooking, with sustainable cooking a non-negotiable). Aided by Head Chef Leonel Aguirre, who oversees the day-to-day, the almost inevitable Michelin star followed just a year after opening.
The hotel, with its marbled grandeur and no less than nine restaurants and bars in total, is anything but restrained, but Colagreco has created about as discreet an atmosphere as you could expect for its fine dining restaurant – the stardust is on the plate. Fruit and vegetables are given novel reverence – part of the sustainable ethos – with over 70 varieties of British produce used throughout the menu, and the sourcing is always an open book.
Glancing at the menu, you might be forgiven for thinking this is a vegetarian restaurant. There’s just one meat course in the seven-course tasting menu, and even that is named after a vegetable. Ultimately, this becomes one of the key assets of the place; everything is fresh and light, not bogged down by the sometimes overwhelming richness of fine dining.
Fruit and vegetables are given novel reverence, with over 70 varieties of British produce used throughout the menu
What we ordered
There are a few options available to you here. If you fancy splashing the cash, you can opt for either the five-course menu at £175 or the seven-course menu at £205. You can order à la carte, but the most budget-friendly offer is the lunch offer, a three-course meal for £65. We opted for the seven-course, which starts with a series of ornate, vegetable-focused canapés; sweet carrot is followed by a zingy crab and radish tartlette, which really sets the tone. If fine-dining isn’t a weekly occurrence (and really it shouldn’t be, for anyone), then you’re always taken aback at the sincerity of the whole performance. This is the sort of place where your bread comes with butter, yes, but also with a Pablo Neruda poem. One of the first sets of canapes was genuinely hard to locate, chameleonic within its floral display.
There are some true strokes of genius in the menu. ‘Asparagus’ (each dish is named after a hero ingredient) is incredible punchy with za’atar, pistachio and a black sesame béarnaise, is justification in itself of Colagreco and Aguirre’s centring of in-season vegetables. When meat does come into play, it’s enhanced by the plant kingdom. Cornish turbot is brought to life with a wild garlic-infused green curry sauce, and a perfectly cooked sirloin alongside brassica and seaweed. For dessert, an immaculate, intricate Jerusalem artichoke, rendered sweet with the aid of caramelised pear and black cardamom.
This is the sort of place where your bread comes with butter, yes, but also with a Pablo Neruda poem
Verdict
Colagreco’s arrival in London was greeted with much fanfare and is part of a step-change in the perception of hotel restaurants. While it has many of the trappings you might usually expect – almost a hushed, serious tone, white tablecloths, a history lesson with each course – it is also admirably forward-looking and fiercely local. This is no Marc Augé-style international transitory space; it has and will continue to attract London’s foodies.
where: 7 Whitehall, London SW1A 2bx
Website: www.raffles.com
