Embassy London – a
marriage of culinary style with substance
After a few days of fine London
weather, I thought it would be
nice to try out the new terrace
at Embassy, having heard that it
was very smartly kitted out at
great expense. The location is
good, a few doors along from Cecconi’s
in a quiet street tucked away behind
the Royal Academy in Piccadilly.
As bad luck would have it, I chose
the day the weather broke. Being
stoic Englishmen, we sat outside
and drank a glass of wine whilst
reading Gary Hollihead’s new summer menu. Hollihead is busy
overseeing at least two other restaurants:
Geales, the celebs’ fish
and chippie in Notting Hill, (reviewed
by Louise Elgin here in Dine-Online)
and the luxury restaurant with
rooms Inn on the Green in Cookham
Dean, Berkshire. His very able
Head Chef at Embassy is David
Kostner.
Embassy is a slightly unusual
concept, in that it consists of
a conventionally smart restaurant
at street level, with nicely dressed
tables and luxurious leather dining
chairs, while below in the basement
there is a night club with bar,
dance floor and hefty AV kit. I’d
have thought the target audiences
were quite different, but I’m
no expert in this field, whereas
Hollihead’s partners Mark
Fuller and Andy Taylor know a thing
or two about the hospitality business.
Nevertheless, I could easily imagine
the stretched limos disgorging
glamorous gaggles of hen-night
girls wanting dinner before bopping
the night away to ear crunching
music.
Although we dropped in for lunch,
we were offered the a la carte
menu, which covers both lunch and
dinner. There are a dozen starters
artfully arranged on glass platters,
ranging from £5 for simple
salads, to £12 for the starter
sized Nicoise, which comes with
seared loin of tuna. We tried the
Oriental crispy Pork belly which
was darkly delicious. There’s
so much pork belly around these
days (whatever happened to lamb
shanks?), most of which is quite
competently cooked - but this was
special, both in flavour and in
contrasting textures. Another gob-stopper
on Gary’s menu is sautéed
prawns, plump and tasty, served
on Yakitori skewers with little
bruschetta boats carrying cargoes
of red pepper concasse. The presentation
was completed with a smear of guacamole.
Smear is the new drizzle, but the
short-lived smear is rapidly being
overtaken by the splodge. The splodge
has been adopted by certain chefs
who believe it to be a token of “good
honest cooking”. . I’ve
long admired Hollihead’s
presentational skills and if he
were ever to introduce splodges
to a dish, then exceedingly artistic
splodges I am sure they would be.
As it was lunchtime we confined
ourselves to lighter dishes, eschewing,
with some regret, such delights
as roast rump of lamb, Aberdeen
Angus beefsteaks or grilled lobster.
Borrowed from sister restaurant
Geale’s, is beer battered
fish and chips with mushy peas.
Instead I had the lobster tagliatelle,
the pasta little too al dente for
my elderly taste, but the lobster
itself came in a rich and correct
Sauce Americaine, truly a joy.
My guest chose the asparagus and
watercress risotto, a vivid fresh
green, lusciously creamy with perfect
rice. A couple more spears of sparrowgrass
would have been even nicer. Main
course prices range from £12
for the Embassy Burger to £20
for the fillet of Angus. I’d
recommend sharing one “side
bite” (£3.50) between
two.
We washed this extremely agreeable
lunch down with a bottle of crisp
and fruity Three Choirs. This excellent
English white wine from Gloucestershire
is named after the great choral
festival where the cathedral choirs
of Worcester, Gloucester and Hereford
join forces. My guest had expressed
doubts when I proposed an English
wine, but he was most agreeably
surprised by its quality. It reminded
us both more of a New World sauvignon
blanc than the older style of English
wine which often smelled and tasted
of stinging nettles!
To finish, it was no hardship
to wait a few extra minutes to
be served an excellent and fragrant
raspberry soufflé with marscapone
ice cream. My guest, greedy pig
that he is, would have liked more
raspberry purée at the bottom
of the soufflé dish, but
we both agreed that the all important
soufflé could not be improved.
And the splodge of ice cream was
pretty good as well.
Clifford Mould June 2008
Embassy London
29 Old Burlington Street
London W1
Tel: 020 7851 0956
