Kaspar's Seafood Bar & Grill - restaurant review

One of my dining companions at the new restaurant at The Savoy is an old friend and also old enough to know the legend of Kaspar the Cat and to have foxtrotted with her father when The River Restaurant offered dancing and cabaret. She is bemused by the look and style of Kaspar’s Seafood Bar & Grill, which opened last week in place of the revamped River Restaurant that emerged from the £220 million hotel renovation completed in 2010 — and presumably failed to enchant sufficient numbers.

I can decode it. A soupçon of Cecconi’s, more than a pinch of Scott’s, a whiff of Le Caprice, chandeliers like Chavot, something of Balthazar … The designer, it turns out, has worked for the David Collins Studio and on projects that include The Berkeley and The Wolseley. I realise that in terms of restaurant design there are only so many ways to skin a cat but to be quite so derivative and shiny, to have tables for two so deep that it is an effort to converse and no tablecloths at a venue that is the apotheosis of grand hotel, is foolish. Lighting in the part of the room near the windows overlooking the Thames is so faint and undirected that as darkness falls it becomes almost impossible to see.

The staff are glassy-eyed with bonhomie. They have been schooled to introduce themselves — Hello, my name is Igor, is Agniezka, is Dragos and so forth. “Here is your lovely meal,” they say. And another adds, “meet your wonderful bread”.

The long menu arranged around a list of seafood from the central bar covers most bases in a chaotic, anxious-to-please fashion and has the odd surprising bargain such as all side dishes being priced at £3 but the cheapest bottle of wine from a humdrum list is £32 — the cheapest glass of champagne is £17 — and a bill escalates speedily.

I went twice for dinner at Kaspar’s, the first time without paying. Primly, I was not going to mention dishes eaten on that occasion but then I think it is my duty to say do not bother with Kaspar’s lobster club sandwich, a hefty, clumsy assembly of three layers of toasted sliced granary bread and scant lobster for £25 — go to Burger & Lobster and you get a whole bug for £20 — or sand shrimp and eel cocktail served inside the time capsule of a glass dome swirling with chemical-tasting smoke or seafood linguine swamped with over-seasoned tomatoes. And give celery and pecorino soup a swerve. Celery soup made with half celeriac, half celery stalks, not too much cream — see Simon Hopkinson’s recipe — is an ambrosial classic. This is piquant dishwater.

On the second visit I paid £14 for a choice of two items from Smoked and Cured Fish. Translucent slices of gravlax and chunky batons of smoked eel are fine but need something extra. Horseradish cream? It is brought. Indonesian prawn salad is spiced prawns in a jumble of dressed leaves, which is perhaps all anyone is entitled to expect.

Anne orders Dover sole thinking it will be served on the bone and filleted beside the table, forgetting that while we are indeed at The Savoy it is now in its down-with-the-kids mood and mode. The fish arrives branded from the grill and as if born boneless, accompanied by a beurre noisette heavily studded with capers. At least the lemon half is swathed in muslin.

Wiener schnitzel, which I assume will be in seasoned crumbs, is coated in batter and lies on the plate like a carpet tile after a flood. The chosen side dish of Savoy cabbage with double-smoked bacon is a grace but not finally a saving grace.

In the late 19th century when Escoffier was chef at The Savoy, he created Pêche Melba for Dame Nellie Melba. She was concerned about the effect of ice cream on her vocal cords but would have screamed herself hoarse at the sight of the 21st-century peach Melba ice cream sandwich, which looks like something you might find in the corner of a shop freezer cabinet where the last delivery from Wall’s was 20 years ago.

By the way, Kaspar, a creature of feline sinuosity sculpted in wood by Basil Ionides in 1926, was commissioned by The Savoy to bring up the numbers if ever an unlucky party of 13 assembled for a meal. In the restaurant commemorating his historic role he has been replaced by an anamorphic sculpture by South African artist Jonty Hurwitz. Why?