Marketing null points! The sign makes it look like a Hungry Hippo All-U-Can-Eat Sunday lunch with foam balls and cheap beer. But step inside and nothing could be further from the truth. Fine seafood, fine wine list, fine (but relaxed) service and with just enough quirkiness and kitsch to make you smile.
I think I may be a wine magpie. I keep buying so much more wine than I could possibly drink. It’s the explorer in me – I just want to keep trying new things.
But enough is enough, so I made time to do a little sorting through my wine rack (I didn’t dare unpack the combine harvester – that’s a week’s work). I was surprised to realise how much French wine I have in store – about 70% of my entire collection is French. Quelle horreur! Why oh why when it is so expensive?
Three reasons:
Just down the road from the entrance to the Ritz on Arlington St, just off Piccadilly, you will find Le Caprice, a favourite haunt of the stars for several decades. This part of London is over-endowed with decent restaurants. To quaint northerners like me this seems unfair.
The Wolseley is just round the corner, as is Langan’s Brasserie, Claridge’s, Scott’s of Mayfair, and Fortnum & Mason. Meanwhile in the nearby West End, The Ivy, sister to Le Caprice, is undoubtedly one of the best restos in London despite the nouvellement célèbrés and the nouveaux riche who visit only to be seen rather than to enjoy food and wine. So was Le Caprice, part of the group that owns The Ivy, as good as its sibling?
Some people claim to learn something new every day. Poor them! I make it my point to learn at least 5 new facts every day. Fact two on September 29th 2007 proved to be a stunna for me. I can’t count the number of times I have been to Switzerland and drunk Dôle thinking that it was a local grape. D’Oh! Marie-Bernard Gillioz Praz was the evil person who gate-crashed my ignorance.
I did once manage to get some sort of degree from Leeds University Business School which is not exactly the Ivy League. Still it stood me in good stead for being comprehensible – occasionally. Sadly this was not true when I visited The Ivy with the wife.
Being in the West End we opened with a quick glass at the Cork & Bottle on Cranbourn Street and swiftly moved on to the surprisingly quiet location next to the St Martin’s Theatre where The Mousetrap has been playing since 1436:
I’ve just been watching one of my favourite TV programmes, Grand Designs. Every episode is a tale of hope and of human triumph in the face of considerable adversity. Best of all it shows that if you have a big plan it is always ten times more difficult to deliver than your worst possible estimate.
Kevin McCloud looks on and commentates in his laconic and smug, but laid back and highly entertaining style. The thing about “reality” TV is that we can all sit back and smile with the expert, at how dumb the subjects are for not realising that they needed building regs approval for the step they are replacing with one that is 1.5 inches lower than the incumbent broken one. Meanwhile we are led to believe that the whole project is in jeopardy as a result.
Would you pay in advance for a crap meal?
No - I wouldn’t either. However, the wine bar on review here gets away with it because the meal is actually not crap but mainly because the wine list is fantastic.
I had been to the Cork & Bottle on Cranbourn St, near Leicester Square many many times and enjoyed every occasion…well maybe except for the first time I visited, where I couldn’t work out the MO for getting served!
So, since I had started my blog, and I happened to be in London, I thought I would revisit and see how the wine list compared to the last time I was there. It hadn’t changed at all – excellent! (although it’s due a change soon to be fair…. come on Don!)
Stumble It!
