Highs and lows of Hakkasan

This article was first published in April 2001

After Hani Farsi's Cecconi's, an Italian restaurant off Bond Street, the next most eagerly awaited opening of the year so far has to be that of Hakkasan, a Chinese restaurant in a basement off Tottenham Court Road.

My first acquaintance with this new addition to London's oriental culinary canon came at one of the opening parties. I was acting as walker to the editor of this very magazine, and I presented myself in my Bentley (now, sadly, deceased after a collision with an Oxford Bus Company charabanc), bathed, in a clean shirt and sports jacket, only moderately late, and whisked her as rapidly as the law, and traffic conditions, permitted to the area around Tottenham Court Road.

Big mistake. You need the patience of Buddha and the life span of Methuselah to locate a parking space around here. After finding somewhere on the far side of the British Museum and making a forced march of such speed and endurance that Bonaparte would have been impressed - no mean feat considering the editor's high-heeled, Eighties-revival boots and Chanel tights - we arrived at a particularly dank alley. It was a thoroughfare characterised by an aroma I can only describe as an unpleasantly intoxicating cocktail of urine, methylated spirits and mature kebab.

Off this alleyway was another alley, this time cobbled and clean. It transpires that a property developer has bought this unprepossessing tranche of inner London and intends to make it an oasis of luxury living. Mind you, even Albania would seem luxurious compared to this part of town - although it is handy if you want to nip out and catch Dannii Minogue in Notre Dame at the Dominion.

The contrast between Hakkasan and its location could not be more pronounced. The restaurant is singularly beautiful; high-quality materials have been used and the result is genuinely chic. This is a proper piece of design, carefully thought out, cleverly put together and definitely not just another off-the-rack restaurant interior. The look has been achieved by cool French designer Christian Liaigre: the walls are clad in Frank Lloyd-Wright-style slate bricks; the room is broken up by a maze of pierced screens; there is a bar area with remarkable sofas and armchairs, covered in blue-grey textured leather embroidered with Chinese designs.

It reminded me of the opening scene of that classic Eighties horror flick The Hunger crossed with those broodingly stylish sets typical of Nineties serial-killer films. It would also make a cracking hideout for a 21st-century Dr No. Everything from the Bill Amberg wallets strapped around the waiters' waists, through the Hussein Chalayan and Chester Barrie staff uniforms, to the special lighting effect that made the wall behind the bar appear to ripple, had been thought out and had obviously cost a bomb.

The man who has spent close to £4 million on this venture is Alan Yau, the same man who transformed the London fast-food scene with the introduction of the Wagamama chain. When it came to Hakkasan, apparently it was a toss-up between a sensational location and sensational design. He clearly chose the latter. But I fear that the area is so grotty that the words 'pearls' and 'swine' spring to mind. Hakkasan is simply too good for its location.

I managed to insinuate myself into a preview night for shareholders, builders, lawyers, accountants and others that had been involved with the project. At my table was the supremo of Delia Smith dot.com, or whatever it is called. Delia's representative on the net is a serious foodie, and so it was reassuring to hear that she judged the food to be rather good. Of the dishes I ate, I can particularly recommend the roasted silver cod (with Nicolas Feuillette champagne and Chinese honey). This dish is in the same culinary lexicon as the quite brilliant black cod that Mark Edwards serves at Nobu.

The dried scallop and crabmeat fried rice was also a remarkably fine piece of cooking - it is the sort of dish that impresses in a sotto voce way. One simply does not dare to expect rice to be so interesting or so good. We also felt obliged to order the abalone, not because of any particular fondness for its innate qualities, but more because of its legendary expense.

Throughout the menu, of which only a selection of dishes was on offer, there are clever little touches, such as the Valhrona cocoa that accompanies the fried organic pork ribs and the offer of jasmine-tea-smoked chicken. I wish more restaurants offered dishes that have been tea-smoked. I remember with considerable fondness a dish of tea-smoked salmon that used to be on offer at Orlando Campbell's Green Street in the mid-Nineties.

However, even though it was a preview, I witnessed a chilling glimpse of the future. In the bar, where I toyed with a post-prandial exotic-fruit platter and a couple of delicious pineapple spring rolls, I witnessed the charming Mrs Yau remonstrating with a drunken religious zealot, who kept calling for more beer in between recommending various passages of the Scriptures. In the end, this inebriated lay preacher was escorted out of the restaurant to spread the word of the Lord elsewhere, but I fear that intoxication of all sorts is a fact of life after dark in this part of town.