Restaurants

Hidden behind the anonymous, office-like façade of St Martin’s Lane Hotel is the chi chi Asia de Cuba, where beatific staff ply you with Hollywood smiles against a clubby backbeat. If the white modernist decor doesn’t stun you into submission, then Philippe Starck’s witty accents of pot plants, higgledy-piggledy photos and vintage books should make an impression. It’s mainly dining à deux here – intimacy is encouraged by an Asian-Cuban menu where every dish is for sharing. The spiced cuisine might borrow from the Chino-Latino cafés of Havana and Miami, but that understanding doesn’t extend to the pricing, which soars skywards for lobster in a rum-coconut red curry (£62) or wagyu beef with tempura king prawns (£74). Dishes are of a high standard, but can be giddily unbalanced. Thai beef salad brought shredded coconut and orange segments to the hot-and-sour mix, but was light on the seared carpaccio; an otherwise ballsy hoi sin duck proved thin on Asian green salad and tropical salsita. Desserts and drinks are inventive: don’t miss the defiantly fluffy asian pear bread-and-butter pudding, or splendid lychee mojito.

Time Out Eating & Drinking Guide 2009