Belvedere gets Collins makeover

This review was first published in July 2000

There was a time when Belvedere in Holland Park was a highly important part of my life. Every Wednesday for about seven or eight years, I used to meet the great Johnny Gold, founder of the nightclub Tramp, for a light lunch. It was the fulcrum of the week, an event around which all others turned, the shred of calm to which I clung in the maelstrom of existence. It was, in short, something to which I looked forward.

For most of the Nineties, Johnny owned Belvedere and during his stewardship I came to know it well. There was the waiter who came from the Connaught, put in a stint at Belvedere and went on to work as a butler at the Elys?e Palace. There was Martinez, a character of Chekovian depth and complexity, who muttered gnomically about the veracity of various racing tipsters. And then, of course, there was Johnny himself, always full of avuncular advice and amusing anecdotes.

Sadly, Johnny sold Belvedere. I believe that the new owner is a man called something like Jimmy the Hood. I believe his name is Lahoud but I prefer 'the Hood' as it has all sorts of snapped-brim, Sinatraesque, comedy gangster-flick resonances.

In a funny way, it was rather nice to be able to revisit an establishment and mutter about how things have changed. And my, how they have changed. I tried to find my way in and found that the door had been moved round the side and the whole place had been given a David Collins makeover.

A David Collins makeover has become an essential part of the success of any London restaurant. His name is even now invoked on invitations to restaurant launches. Perhaps soon it will be enough for a restaurateur to announce that his or her restaurant is based loosely on the style of David Collins or that he or she once met David at a party. Such is his social standing that I don't see why the bespectacled Irishman doesn't cut out the middleman and open a chain of restaurants named Caf? Collins, each decked out with craquelure wall-finish, screens of reflective glass, balustrades, intriguing light fittings, old-looking drawings and expensive carpet. The new-look Belvedere would make an excellent flagship Caf? Collins.

I had thought about asking Johnny along for lunch, but decided against it. I want to keep the memory of our lunches in mental aspic. Instead, I asked a motoring journalist if she would join me; she and I were among a group of opinion-formers privileged enough to be dispatched to Palm Springs to test-drive the new convertible Rolls-Royce Corniche, and I felt we were due a reunion. Besides, I considered it a good opportunity to seek professional advice on the sort of car I ought to think of getting.

Having failed to enter the restaurant through a closed window, I found the new front door and entered the new-look Belvedere. 'Le style' Collins has hit Holland Park. One thing about Belvedere has remained the same, however: the presence of Michael Winner. I have always found him an absolutely charming man and, being a friendly face in otherwise unfamiliar surroundings, I charged across the restaurant and shook his hand with vigorous and unfeigned glee. I said it was a shame Johnny was no longer here. He agreed but said Belvedere was a nice place anyway. And who am I to argue with those who are older, richer and wiser than me?

It is a nice place. It is a conventionally elegant late-20th/early-21st century restaurant. The look of the menu is reminiscent of the Mirabelle and the lengthy wine list, which offers rich drunks the chance to drop three grand on a bottle of Yquem, seems to owe something to the Marco Pierre White school of restaurant management.

Service was friendly and faultless. The food was pretty damn good as well. The motoring correspondent was momentarily silenced on the subject of her mechanic's course while she consumed what was apparently an exemplary risotto of calamari. I devoured a ceviche of sea scallops with chives, ginger and fresh coriander that was almost Nobuesque in its excellence.

My tranche of sea bass was perfectly good. I must have been dazzled by my companion's account of her enrolment in the Institute of Advanced Motorists, as I missed the opportunity to order escalope of salt cod proven?ale. Salt cod is something I try never to miss, although I have yet to taste anything superior to the Baccal? Mantecato at Riva in Barnes.

My friend found her roast chicken from Bresse so exquisite that she ate only half of it and took the rest home to feed to her dog. As this pooch seems to exist on a diet of foie gras and white truffles, the chef de cuisine at Belvedere, Jeremy Hollingsworth, should feel proud of himself. Certainly the staff were worthy of the honour that the motoring correspondent bestowed on them and delivered a neatly wrapped parcel with considerable aplomb and dignity.