Taking Liberties with Arthur

This review was published in April 2002

Now I know that change is often inevitable, but that doesn't mean it's always a good thing. The new-look Liberty is dull.

There is a nice enough cosmetics hall and a standard post-Harvey Nicks menswear department. But Liberty's founder, Arthur Lasenby Liberty, was a trendsetter. His original store was like a cross between The Conran Shop, Connolly, White Cube and Voyage. Given that Arthur Liberty had a knack of knowing what his customers wanted before they knew it themselves, he would have been sorely disappointed by the caf? that bears his forename.

The basement caf? looks nice enough in a plain, open-plan, bland sort of way. Staff are sweet and helpful, and the menu is short. Food is divided modishly into 'small plates', 'main plates' and 'pudding plates' - the list reads well enough, but the execution doesn't always deliver.

Porcini mushroom soup with truffle oil was OK, but so much truffle oil had been used that it smelt like a gas mains had ruptured. A New York chopped tuna salad was a sorry-looking bowl of flaked tuna and a few bits of veg. The cherry tomato tartlets with white bean pur?e came in those multi-purpose pastry cases that at another time of year would be dressed up as mince pies.

My St Mawes lobster with linguine was adequate, if a little bland, ditto the chicken salad with papaya noodles and ginger. However, my friend drew the short straw with a dish of Old Worcester 'rarebit', Granny Smith and watercress. I would have thought it impossible for a professional kitchen to cock up cheese on toast but this one proved me wrong.

Liberty could have played safe with another Joe's Caf? or a Carluccio's . It might even have created something genuinely good in the light lunch mode - another Nicole's or Sotheby's Caf? . Sadly, it has not. Arthur Liberty must be turning in his grave.

Arthur's
Regent Street, London, W1B 5AH