db Eats: Céleste at The Lanesborough

The democratisation of fine dining in London is a fabulous thing. No longer the preserve of über rich hedge funders, oligarchs and their supermodel wives, the doors have been flung open and the rules of the game changed so dramatically that anyone can now enjoy sensationally good food cooked by some of the capital’s most exciting and progressive chefs without having to re-mortgage their houses.

Célese at The Lanesborough has won its first Michelin star

I’m a huge fan of the casual dining movement and the desire to rid fine dining venues of their stuffiness and pretention, but every so often I reminisce about the days when eating out really meant something; an occasion circled in the diary and looked forward to for weeks. A chance to put on your best togs and be transported to another world for a few hours.

Céleste, the almost indecently beautiful new restaurant at The Lanesborough hotel in Hyde Park Corner, is a throwback to the last days of decadence. Its opening in 2015 seems wonderfully anachronistic, the audaciously priced menu paying no attention to the current trend for affordable fine dining. There’s a confidence about Céleste that I admire. The place exists in some delicious time warp we’re all allowed to enter if our wallets are fat enough.

I’ve been reviewing restaurants long enough to remember some of their previous lives. Céleste used to be Apsleys, overseen by German-born, Rome-based multi Michelin-starred chef Heinz Beck, whose food cleverly combined richness and intensity of flavour with freshness. Back then I considered Apsleys the most beautiful dining room in London, but Céleste takes interiors to heavenly heights.

Langoustine ravioli

Flooded with natural light from a domed glass roof before the sun sets, the pale blue room is punctuated by a trio of spectacular chandeliers that wouldn’t look out of place at Versailles.

Greco-Roman bas-relief friezes of frolicking women in floaty fabrics and muscly men on horseback line the walls, held up by fluted columns. Gilded mirrors and French blue velvet sofas add to the Regency-period opulence and palatial splendor in one of the most magnificent restaurant makeovers I’ve ever seen. The final flourish is a pianist in the corner playing hauntingly beautiful songs like Yann Tirsen’s Comptine d’un autre été.

The new incarnation is part of a multi-million pound refurb by the hotel’s new management, who also manage Le Bristol in Paris. In keeping with the French theme, Céleste’s chef patrion is Eric Frechon of Le Bristol’s three Michelin-starred restaurant, who has entrusted the stoves to his protégée Florian Favario, who champions French accented cuisine made with seasonal British ingredients.

The devil is in the detail here, from the amuse-bouche to the petit fours, every morsel is approached with a painter’s eye for detail and a surgeon’s precision.

Dining with my darling mum on a Tuesday evening, our night began with cocktails. My Beekeeper Fizz blended Champagne with British honey, dark rum and lemon juice to great effect. To nibble on, a trio of amuse-bouche included moreish strips of truffle-laced celery and smooth haddock mousse on a bed of crunchy seaweed.

For many, the menu might seem disconcertingly brief, with just six mains on offer, three of them fish dishes. I’m so used to the sharing plates concept, the idea of having to commit to just three dishes felt foreign. Unable to choose between the Burford brown egg and langoustine ravioli starters, our charming, velvet-clad French waiter allowed us to each try them both.

Curious to see how the restaurant could justify charging £20 for a single hen egg, the dish didn’t disappoint. Encased in a crunchy coating of Panko breadbrumbs and filled with a layer of moist chicken and silky lardo, the yolk of the egg sunshine yellow and perfectly runny, it reminded me of Jason Atherton’s effort at Berners Tavern. The addition of dollops of earthy truffle mayo catapulted it into another realm of deliciousness. 

Guanaja chocolate

The langoustine ravioli meanwhile, was the highlight of the experience. Served swimming in a creamy claw velouté rich in flavour but as light and bubbly as an Aero in texture, the tiger-striped ravioli housed juicy chunks of the sweet meat enhanced by an Asian-inspired lick of ginger and coriander.

Rather disappointingly, my main event – John Dory with alioli, sautéed squid and parsley biscuits in a fish bouillon poured theatrically from a teapot, was the least inspiring and interesting of the night’s dishes.

For £36, I was hoping to be wowed, but save for the smoky squid, the flavours were too whispering and subdued to surprise and delight. Slightly deflated, pastry chef Nicholas Rouzaud’s desserts lifted our spirits.

Another Le Bristol alumnus, we bypassed his signature strawberry pud featuring a giant strawberry made of hand-blown sugar in favour of the devastatingly decadent guanaco chocolate. Served with caramelised cashews and a scoop of roasted coffee bean ice cream, the chocolate was hidden in a crunchy log stuffed with gold leaf resting on circular swooshes of blood-red chocolate reminiscent of a Rothko painting. Its intensely rich, gooey innards melted any resolve I may have had when I walked in.

The wine list is looked after by friendly female sommelier Natalia Kozlowska, who treated us to some daring parings, the most successful of which was Joseph Mellot La Chatellenie Sancerre 2014 with an heirloom tomato starter, its notes of passion fruit and flint harmonising beautifully with the zingy dish. As a solo act, my wine of the night was a glass of Domaine Larue Puligny-Montrachet Premier Cru La Garenne 2011, which had all the texture and depth you’d hope for in top white Burgundy coupled with a lightness of touch.

Dinner at Céleste doesn’t come cheap – prices, in places, are shockingly high, but it isn’t designed to be somewhere you regularly return to. Céleste is a special occasion restaurant to save up for and splash out on. It’s for birthdays, graduations, new jobs and engagements, and for those keen to step back in time to an era when fine dining was reserved for the lucky few. I’m all for eating pulled pork sliders under filament bulbs, but I’m happy Céleste has come onto the scene to remind us of a golden age of dining that, in London at least, seems all but lost.

Céleste at the Lanesborough, 9 Hyde Park Corner, London SW1X 7TA; Tel: +44 (0)20 7259 5599