Restaurants

This large ground-floor restaurant is bright, airy and inoffensively decorated, has a pleasant leafy view through the plane trees of Grosvenor Square , and together with a seductively lit bar is attached to a suitably glamorous hotel foyer. The wine list is slim but not too alarmingly priced; the daily changing and à la carte menus are similarly aimed at not excluding the average London diner. If, however, you frequent hotel restaurants on a regular basis, you’ll find a few annoying devils in the detail. Water glasses are stored somewhere musty and MDF-smelling, so your water will taste the same. Staff need to call a manager over if you ask a question about anything. Spoons are too deep to eat from without slurping noisily; menu descriptions don’t always accurately reflect the dish you are given; and you’re asked to choose a wine nanoseconds after arriving, well before most people have decided what to eat. Paying £4 for an ordinary coffee without any chocolate nibbly bits on the side is also a bit mean – we like chocolate nibbly bits! But, details aside, Brian Turner’s food is much as the man himself is portrayed: affable, upfront, unpretentious – all good things. Where it sometimes misses the mark is in the subtlety department. Casserole of Italian aubergines with poppy seed and garlic sauce and cardamom rice was good, but without sign of poppy seeds or mention of the Indian spices running through the dish: at odds with the Italian description. And pear tarte tatin with blackberry ice-cream was nicely flavoured but overly sweet and had none of the textural satisfaction that characterises ideal tarte tatin. Value is fair, though, and the place is popular with birthdaying family groups and suited business people talking shop over lunch.

Time Out Eating & Drinking Guide 2008