The Chant of the Barbie Dolls

A Sunday, early evening reservation was the best time we could get for GR@Claridge's recently, but we accepted it gratefully. We started off in the bar with champagne and cocktails and some delicious nibbles - pricey at 20 quid, but easing us nicely into the evening.

From there we found our way into the wonderfully decorous, art deco
interior of Claridge's - every where you look being a visual treat although I have to confess I'm a big art deco fan. Immediate impressions were of a large, lavish, comfortable relaxed dining room with attentive and professional service. Starting with some pink champagne (I've had better aperitif's mind you) we surveyed the menus and a wine list as thick as a phone book. Our waiter was helpful in suggesting a set menu which we both opted for in the end, and we dialled up a Baudoc from the bewilderingly large list when our original choice turned out to be unavailable.

Our menu comprised 3 starters, which were more amuse bouches in size - melon soup with a crab dressing - deliciously cool and creamy; great foie gras; and then scallops with Jerusalem artichokes - the scallops were of excellent quality drizzled in a light caramel sauce and cooked just right and still intensely hot at the table. The Baudoc we had was a superb accompaniment and crispy-cold so we were getting along very nicely at this point.

Call me a nit-picker, but the service went a bit downhill here. This may have been a function of the location of our table - right in the corner near to some tills and napkin reservoirs, and the constantly hovering waiters were beginning to annoy. My pet hate is having my wine glass topped up by waiters. In fact, in the technical book of service etiquette, waiters should never refill a glass unless asked, so I have protocol on my side here.

Anyhow, mains were a choice of duck or pork and we both opted for duck - which was faultless: cooked exactly as I asked (pink) with a delicious crispy salty skin. It also had a revelatory accompaniment of turnip no less, that I heartily enjoyed. My girlfriend had a champagne soup with strawberries, which was allegedly nice, but I didn't get offered any, so it must have been. There was a great selection of horrendously smelly cheeses, upon which I fell and wrought much desolation.

The coup de grace was a superb "out of the firkin" crème brulee with rhubarb ice cream and some crunchy rhubarb sticks. I thought the rhubarb worked well, but Piggly Wiggly was indifferent to it, but agreed on the quality of the crème brulee. Coffee and petits fours followed in the foyer/lounge, as we had to give up our table for 8pm. All in all, including wine, service and drinks we ended up about 260 quid out of pocket.

Was it worth it ? Well I cannot fault any of the food at all - the service was, if anything, too attentive and the surroundings sublime. The huge disappointment for me was the extent of the menu: large but most definitively a "hotel" menu. In our terms that translates as "standard", "safe" and, if I'm going to call it like it is, "boring". There wasn't one thing there I hadn't had a dozen times before in other (albeit inferior quality) restaurants. There wasn't a single "wow factor" dish at all. Not one thing that would make you say "yukkk" or "wow I wonder what that's like?" or "that must be horrible - how can you have X and Y on the same plate?". In short, the menu was decidedly unadventurous. 

Which may be fine if you're wanting to impress a picky eater, or you want a reliable lunch spot for an important family get together, but not if you want what Keith Floyd once called a "gastonautic experience".