Brown's is a venerable grande dame of the London hotel trade. It's the capital's oldest
operating five-star hotel, opened in 1837, the year of Victoria’s ascension, by
the enterprising James Brown, who was once Lord Byron's valet, and has been
stuck for eons with slightly moth-eaten labels of ‘refinement’ and ‘gentility’,
as if its natural clientele were maiden aunts and decrepit urban relics of the landed
gentry. Rocco Forte took over in 2003 and the establishment was given a £18m
spring-clean by his sister, Olga Polizzi. A hose-down of the Grill followed,
with Mark Hix (Le Caprice, J Sheekey and The Ivy) drafted in as Director of Food,
along with Marcus Verberne (whose CV mirrors Hix’s) as Executive Chef.
Stepping
through the doors pitches you back to the days when hotel restaurants were
places of alarm and intimidation: fusty catacombs with napery shrouds and
harried waiters. The feeling wears off, though, when you see that it's very
coolly designed: wood panelling, wood pillars, snow-white tablecloths, green
chairs and vases of what look to be silk flowers but are strange, waxy tulips. Most
arresting, however, is the clutch of artwork – an Emin neon here, a Rankin
photograph there, a smattering of paintings by Fiona Rae, Peter Peri and Mat
Collishaw. It’s worth going just to see the art.
The menu is made of aesthetically sterner stuff. One can play a game here, spotting the Director of Food’s
signature dishes. Mixed beets with Ragstone goat’s cheese and wild herbs;
that's terribly Hix, the West Country aficionado of rustic sourcing. So is the
salt beef and bobby bean salad with Tewkesbury mustard dressing, the whole
Cornish megrim sole and the Newlyn monkfish curry. For nostalgists, there are
vestigial traces of the old Trust House Forte style in the fish & chips and
the Lancashire hot-pot. The Game and Meat section offers no less than fourteen
varieties of flesh, including venison, rabbit, partridge, grouse and
woodpigeon: it's a restaurant that's almost belligerently hearty, and I found
it irresistible.
My
monkfish cheeks with caper mayonnaise were a revelation, four gorgeous brown
lumps of battered monkfish, to be spritzed with lemon and eaten greedily. Who
knew fish cheeks could be so substantial? The capers cut the mayo to perfection.
Beside me, Gerald was relishing his Kentish purple sprouting broccoli with
Oxford Blue; a lesson in how to serve a vegetable in an appetising and
imaginative manner.
For
the main course, I chose a wild fallow chop with braised red cabbage and
prunes, because I'd never eaten fallow deer before. Expecting a single chop, I
was amazed by the profusion of meat that appeared before me – three huge
tranches of what resembled lamb steaks, roasted medium rare, the flesh rosy.
Its taste was a puzzle, lying somewhere between the pungent, velvet intensity
of venison and the fibrous smoulder of beef. Gerald’s pan haggerty with
woodland mushrooms and scallions drew fresh raptures. He – a lifelong
vegetarian no less - declared that he had never tasted vegetables so crunchy
and punchy and delicately flavoured at the same time.
We both
marvelled at the size of the helpings, and agreed we couldn't possible handle a
pudding. Undying devotion to duty, coupled with sheer greed, however, led us
eventually to share an apple and blackberry crumble with custard, which
resembled a catering slab from Desserts-U-Like, but tasted absolutely heavenly,
the crumble as fine as sand. The custard, with its tiny kiss of vanilla, came
in a wooden jug – and when we'd emptied it, they brought another. It's that
kind of place.
This
was the tastiest, most enjoyable and by some way largest dinner I've eaten in
months. HIX at The Albemarle may not win Michelin stars for Ferran Adria-style ambition,
but its commitment to British food, lovingly cooked to bring out its finest
qualities, makes it an instant favourite. I'll return as soon as possible.
