1527470 comments

• Comment Link
  ร้านดอกไม้พร้อมส่งทันที Posted 27.11.2024 in 16:16

  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
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Beef wellington sliced and sauced at the table (£150)
  and crêpes suzette flambéed with 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.
  
  minjiang.co.uk