A spot of alchemy at lunch

Lunchtime menus of haute cuisine chefs frequently represent a bargain. This rule holds true at PERIDOT, the brasserie of The Bentley hotel in South Kensington.

The chef in question is Andrew Turner, who made his name at the 1837 restaurant of Brown's Hotel, where his ambitious, classic cooking was matched by a wine list offering exceptional choice by the glass.

The main restaurant at The Bentley, called 1880, apparently after the date of the original building, is open only in the evenings, but many of the same dishes are offered at lunchtime for £19/£26 for two/three courses, a deal that seems more amazing when you take into account the gilt, mosaic, tapestry, brocade, paint effects and cut glass which cover every surface in a riot of appalling taste. Midas must have been the interior decorator.

Despite the lavish approach to furnishing, neither dining space is ideal. The restaurant is a windowless basement room, the ground-floor brasserie a lowceilinged interior space decorated like an old-fashioned department-store tea parlour, with dainty place mats and matching coasters on the tables.

For most of lunch my companion and I were the only customers in the room, our every move scrutinised by the staff. However, what we ate was excellent and there was a certain appealing Temple to Mammon madness about the location.

Turner has devised what he calls Blazing Menus, enabling the luncher "to blaze" through the menu in five small, pre-selected courses. This activity is priced at £32. We didn't feel in the mood for blazing and all the interruptions to conversation it would entail. In the evenings in the restaurant you can graze rather blaze.

We started with curried mussel cappuccino with fennel and lemon, and foie gras with crushed potatoes, mango and sauce Perigourdine, both dishes cleverly balanced and beautifully constructed. In the main course roasted Atlantic sea bass fillet with braised oxtail and caramelised onions went some way towards justifying Turner's invocation in his menu notes of the "alchemy" of cooking.

I chose a dish particular to lunch which was spiced duck cassoulet. Pieces of confit duck, crowned rather oddly with a basil leaf, which sat atop the beans and sausages, were delicious but altogether the assembly didn't manage to eradicate the nagging feeling that somewhere out there is a creation more worthy of the name cassoulet.

A tendency in Turner to preciousness erupts in the dessert course with one choice titled Emphasis on Chocolate, another Palette of Ice Cream and Sorbet. We decided to share Crème Br°lée "Peridot". The glazed custard came in four tiny dishes, each one differently flavoured with vanilla, pumpkin, hazelnut and orange. It was an example of the sort of trouble not worth going to, especially when you discover that in taking two little dishes each you both get charged for a three-course lunch. The mistake was put right.

As with nearly all hotels, wine prices overturn the notion of a good deal. Bottles here start at £30. A pity, because Turner and his head chef Anthony Joseph are talented chaps who would appreciate more custom.

Peridot
Harrington Gardens, London, SW7 4JX