After “What’s the best restaurant in London?”, the question I’m most often
asked while doing anonymous charity work among the capital’s destitute is:
“What’s Michael Winner like?” To which the answer has to be: “He’s a god” —
probably one of those crudely carved ones from the South Seas with its
tongue hanging out.
Winner is the only journalist who employs market researchers to find out how
many readers he has (about four times as many as are reading this). He is
the Hannibal Lecter of critics: he makes a meal of the waiters. “Darling, if
I wanted dozens of staff fussing around me, I could have stayed at home.”
Actually, he’s secretly far, far nicer than he likes you or the confederation
of maître d’s to know, and I don’t get to lunch him anything like enough. We
can’t do dinner, because by 8.30pm he’s in bed with some compliant starlet
(on the telly). So I took him to the newly revamped Grill Room at the Savoy,
along with Terry “Smudger” O’Neill and Jeremy King, who co-refounded the
Ivy.
Of all the old Establishment restaurants, the Savoy Grill is the only one I
feel any fondness for. It was a wonderfully bland room with immaculate
service. They would carve the smoked salmon at your table, and
steak-and-kidney pie came in a ceramic bucket with a nappy napkin, and
poached oysters bubbling on the side. The ribs of beef were processed on a
chariot pushed by a chef in a toque like a papal announcement, who you
tipped half-a-crown.
The food may not have lived up to the restrained plutocracy of the room, but
it was the godfather of all power lunches. Every pinstriped Croesus had his
favourite booth, and all Fleet Street editors ate here on Fridays. It was
here that I was first offered a contract on this paper. “What do you want
from journalism?” asked the deputy editor. Sir, I want to be rich, famous
and respected. “Will you settle for two out of three?” I was the first to
arrive, and Angelo, the old maître d’, who has gratifyingly agreed to stay,
welcomed me as if I were New Year’s Eve. I once turned up without a
reservation, having not been for two years. “Mr Gill, how nice to see you,”
he said. “Your coffee’s on the way, but I’m afraid we don’t have the oysters
you like.” And before you put your fingers down your throat, this was long
before I was a restaurant critic. He is quite simply the best.
The room hasn’t so much been redesigned as given plastic surgery. The wooden
panelling has been scrubbed and lifted a shade, the lighting has been made
prettier and kinder, and a couple of pillars have been silver-plated.
It looks the same, but younger and, actually, more authentic. The Savoy is the
most architecturally interesting and innovative of all London hotels. Built
by D’Oyly Carte from the proceeds of Gilbert and Sullivan, it was the most
daringly designed structure of its day. The first to be entirely
electrified, it had its own well and the best shower heads — and it still
boasts its own theatre.
The kitchen has been taken over by Marcus Wareing, the chef at Pétrus. He and
Gordon Ramsay are carving up all of London’s old hotel dining rooms. The new
menu has had rather more radical surgery than the room. It’s still
essentially English carvery food, but aggressively modern. The schoolish
dish of the day has been replaced with a set lunch for a very reasonable
£21. Three courses à la carte are £35.
We started with a plate of smoked salmon and gravadlax, which is still sliced
at the table in slivers you can read a newspaper through. The salmon is as
good as you’ll get if you like the texture of wild salmon, as opposed to the
softness of lox. The gravadlax is there to remind you how much better smoked
salmon is.
I just had to have the omelette Arnold Bennett, made with smoked haddock and
gruyère béchamel. It was invented here. “Who was Arnold Bennett?” asked
Winner. He was a writer, a wit and a critic who came here after the theatre
to file his reviews. They invented this dish as a light supper and named it
after him. “So who’s Gordon Bennett, then?” It’s omelette Gordon Bennett if
they drop it.
There used to be a man here who did nothing but make perfect, smooth
omelettes, which he sealed with a hot knife. Now they come in a copper
chafing dish as a fishy-eggy fricassee, with a gratiné béchamel top. It
tasted wonderfully rich, but it hadn’t coagulated properly, so I was left
with a residue of eggy soup.
I’m not sure if this is really an improvement.
Jeremy had calves’ sweetbreads with onion marmalade, which were good, the
onions particularly smooth and sweet. Michael had the terrine of rabbit loin
with hazelnuts, which he said was fine, except that it wasn’t what he’d
expected from rillettes. That’ll be because it’s a terrine, then. I’ve never
seen the maestro at work before. He uses a dictaphone like Norman Wisdom
pretending to be a spy. “Beef’s much better than it was on Sunday,” he
bellows, as if recording on a wax disc for Thomas Edison.
He and Jeremy shared a chateaubriand, which was the star of the lunch. Ideal
Aberdeen Angus, carved at the table; soft, velvety texture with just enough
tooth, and a truffle gravy. Too many things came with the addition of
truffles, and often with ghastly truffle oil, which should preferably only
be used when there’s an x in the month. My grilled turbot, boned and skinned
beside me, was a credit to flat bottom-feeders (not flat-bottom feeders)
everywhere.
The cheese trolley took an age to arrive. Winner spotted it hiding behind a
pillar. “There’s the cheese trolley,” he yelled. “Here boy, come here.” But
it didn’t want to. A covey of waiters hovered around it, whispering
encouragement, giving it little shoves. “He’s not as fierce as he looks,”
they said. “He won’t eat you. Well, not all of you.” The cheese was B-plus,
and this is one room where it should be exemplary. The old Savoy would never
have sent out the skunky bit of cheddar we were offered.
Puddings also get a trolley. They were light on stodge, and needed something
that would mug your liver on the way through. An apple strudel thing was
just this side of the staff canteen, but a fruit salad was nice enough.
Over all, the food is much improved, although it’s still not quite all there.
Personally, I’d simplify it a bit, trust the ingredients — which were, for
the most part, impeccable — and leave the bloody truffles out of the mash.
The service is intensive care, but friendly and not overpowering.
I left with a huge sigh of relief. This is still one of the best teams in
Britain, even when faced with a Yiddish terminator, and the customers seem
unchanged. You wouldn’t want to go on holiday with any of them: it was
wall-to-wall worsted, and the new lights sparkled off 100 well-fed bald
patches.
