I never flew in a zeppelin. I suppose that’s obvious. I neither crossed the
Atlantic in the Graf II, nor plummeted to my doom in the Hindenburg,
roasting as I fell, so that I died still wondering whether the fall or the
flames would kill me first.
But I have seen the bit in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade where Harrison
Ford escapes from a German airship by pretending to be a ticket-collector,
and I think my dad took me to see one at an air show – or at least some
zeppelin-like blimp – when I was very, very small. But I may be thinking of
the Epcott Centre. Or Les Dawson as Humpty Dumpty.
At any rate, I feel no less qualified to compare my recent lunch at Galvin at
Windows to eating in a Zeppelin than one of those hyper-metaphoric critics
who declare that the bouillabaisse reminded them of mole vomit, or that the
lemon cheesecake tasted of chorus-girl’s armpit.
Mostly, it’s the height. You’re way up there on top of the Hilton, 28 floors
above Park Lane (I personally don’t feel comfy any nearer to it than that),
with a panoramic view through huge, square, ceiling-high windows of the vast
basin in which London bubbles, and of thousands of acres of sky, all blue
and samey and studded with clouds, above, and beside and beneath you.
Further down, towers, domes, palaces and temples lie open to the fields and to
the sky, and take on that strangely vulnerable look that things very far
away, which do not know that they are being watched, can take on. Especially
if you’re Lee Harvey Oswald, or one of H.G. Wells’s Martians.
And then you couple that feeling with the restaurant’s interior, which has
been made over in Fritzlangtastic Thirties Germanic Futurist style, with
muscular bronze drapes and eau de nil paintwork, shimmering curtains of fine
cord, a vast ceiling sculpture of tangled chrome à la Mobius, egregiously
Modernist wine- holders, lamps inclined menacingly upwards at the classic
45-degree angle of wartime searchlights… and you can’t help thinking: “This
is what it must have been like in the dining room of a zeppelin.”
Or in the cockpit of one, raiding London in the First World War, scudding
silently between the clouds at dusk, squinting down for the House of
Commons, finger on the bomb-release button. Enthusiasts will no doubt soon
be booking corner tables by the window so that, when the waiter’s back is
turned, they can whip on their leather flying goggles, straddle their chairs
backwards, grip the back like one of those two-handled plane gun shooty
things (I’m not an enthusiast myself), and rattle it vigorously at
Buckingham Palace, shrieking, “Die, Little Piggy! Die!”
Not me. I came for the food. For the chef-patron is Chris Galvin who will be
carving up his time between here and the sensational Galvin Bistrot de Luxe
in Baker Street, which he runs with his brother, Jeff. It sounds a strange
union, this coupling of a laughing-stock cocktail joint for down- at-heel
playboys, lost Japanese tourists and Serbian hookers with a casual, quietly
elegant Marylebone brasserie. And yet it has – as is fitting in such a spot
– been thrillingly pulled off.
The menu is still seasonal, unpompous and gently exciting, but the prices have
climbed somewhat from the very reasonable level found at Bistrot de Luxe.
The English asparagus was a tenner, Loch Fyne smoked salmon is £12, seared
foie gras is £14, and the bisque of native lobster £11.
Even the salad of garden vegetables and pea shoots in walnut oil came in at
£9.50, which is quite a lot for some leaves tasting faintly of nut. Although
it is not often one eats garden vegetables while peering cheekily down into
the world’s most famous garden as it is prepared for party season in the
year of the host’s 80th birthday.
It was my girlfriend, who both ordered the salad and has, she claims, attended
a number of these parties, who identified what was going on, as swarms of
wee subjects erected marquee after marquee down in the Buckingham Palace
backyard. For my part, I was transfixed by the guy on the roller, who was
going backwards and forwards on a diagonal axis across the already striped
lawn, creating a sort of diamond effect. I can only assume that the fellow
had set his vehicle’s cruise control to “tortoise”, for in the course of our
two-hour lunch he managed no more than eight stripes.
It is hard to tell how big your lawn is from up there, Ma’am, so perhaps I am
being unfair. But might I humbly suggest you take a look at the gardener’s
accounts? For I fear that someone may be taking advantage of your famously
advancing years to have, as we say, a bit of a lark.
Ah, yes, I came for the food, didn’t I? I had the chicken velouté, and was not
blown away (which was just as well, for it is a long way down). It was a bit
salty and the croûtons were chewy. It didn’t make the view any less
enjoyable, but nor did the Serbian hookers (au contraire, in fact). And an
£8.50 chicken soup ought to be cracking wherever it’s served.
The sweetbreads, fortunately, were. A pancreas served whole as a centrepiece
is a relatively rare thing in London, where chefs prefer to chop up the
gland and use it to garnish prime cuts, and this was a treat of just the
sort for which the original Galvin has become famous. Dense like chicken
breast but sweet as a kiss, served with morels and asparagus tips (whose
visual similarity is cutely exploited) and really wonderful mashed potato,
it was the Parisian bistro dish of my dreams.
Twenty-four quid is eye-watering money for such a dish, though. It feels
profligate, at that price, to look away from the view even for a second. You
feel you must glue your face to the glass and feel blindly for something to
fork into your gob while gawping. It is thus a shame that an artificial box
hedge on the balcony cuts off quite a swath of the city from view – about 14
quid’s worth a head, I’d say.
In the same price bracket as the sweetbreads, and I’m sure equally great, were
Anjou pigeon with petits pois à la Française and pommes cocottes, tournedos
of Angus beef with bourguignonne garnish and marrow (yum), and roast spiced
croisé duck.
Among the fish were organic salmon, monkfish and grilled Dorset lobster, as
well as a John Dory with fennel and Jerusalem artichokes and a fumet of
pinot noir, which my girlfriend tucked into with glee. We were too full for
pudding I’m afraid, but picked at some nice bits and pieces – madeleines,
truffles, that sort of thing – by way of petits fours.
There is value to be had here – so long as you factor in the view as a
paid-for commodity – in the £28 three-course menu, which offers three
choices of starter and main and a pudding. But you’ll want to be careful
with a wine list that doesn’t come alive until past the 30 quid mark.
Still, this is a hotel on Park Lane, not a house on Old Kent Road, and with
its glitzy adjoining bar, sleek service and general wealthy hum this is a
really decent addition to London’s
going-out-for-a-bit-of-a-scoff-but-also-with-a-little-extra-something-bolted-on-to-make-it-a-night-out
scene. Not to mention a great opportunity for anyone who missed out on the
glamour of the airship era. And any new location in which to eat from the
Galvin hand can only be a good thing. The only losers I can think of are the
hookers. And they’ve always got Harvey Nicks.
Galvin at Windows
Hilton Hotel, 22 Park Lane, W1 (020-7208 4021)
Meat/fish: 7
Cooking: 8
Other: 9
Score: 8
Click here to book a table at this restaurant
Mosaica @ The Lock
Heron House, Hale Wharf, Ferry Lane, N17 (020-8801 4433)
The problem with eating at Galvin at Windows is that the “at” in its name
makes it impossible to write an elegant locational sentence about. The same
problem afflicts this excellent, ballsy modern restaurant in a striking
urban environment, which I reviewed last year. As it does at Mosaica @ The
Factory, and at Jamies at the Pavilion, and at Spoon+ at Sanderson, and at
Frizzante @ The Farm, and at Food @ The Muse.
Book
a table at Galvin at Windows
