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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