Winning formula at La Rascasse

This review was published in May 2002

Anyone looking for a posh dinner in Mayfair would be unlikely to stagger into the Cafè Grand Prix. From street level, it looks like the breakfast room in some kind of money-laundering Balkan grand hotel.

Grimly lit, furnished with unforgiving metal chairs, it doesn't seduce you in - unless, that is, you're attracted by the cool blond door-person or the million pound white sports car cocooned in a glass cage bang in the centre. 'It goes from nought to 60 in three seconds,' confided the blond. Like I care. And no, I don't know what it was; it looked like the sort of thing sad, middle-aged gits drive down the King's Road.

The theme thing is just so uncool. Yet bucketloads have been spent on this multi-level, massive restaurant and bar. At street level is the Pit Brasserie: drinks, light meals, a flower shop and a branded merchandise outlet. It has, as I mentioned, the kind of atmosphere to turn 'em away in droves. But penetrate deeper and there are surprises. Big surprises.

First is the charm, professionalism and handsomeness of the staff. They make you feel that you're massively welcome despite the fact you're wearing a scabby old denim jacket and everyone else is in a nice suit. One of these divine young men wafted me downstairs to Rosie's bar, a dark, clubby space, to wait for my date. (As a rather crucial aside, the whole place is based on the original of the same name in Monaco which is inside the Grand Prix circuit. So they, at least, have an excuse for the name.)

Second surprise is the restaurant proper, La Rascasse. Again, major investment is evident: more of the charming, classically-trained young men; there's the rather amusing decor - is it baroque Tyrolean hunting lodge? Transylvanian great hall?

It's certainly different from the perceived London ideal of upmarket restaurant: cream drapes hang from a vertiginously high ceiling; there are spotlit circular booths, a kitsch mezzanine balcony with table for rampant exhibitionists; there's rustic tiling, fauxbaronial embroidery and metal studs on chairs, personalised crockery - it's most definitely a middle-aged European's idea of luxurious glamour.

So does the food match up? Head chef Richard Turner's menu manages not to be upstaged by the loony surroundings. Though mostly expensive, there's an excellent value three-course set menu at £19.95 (which would have cost £34 if ordered from the a la carte). Starters were stellar: peeled, tender asparagus in a fragrant dressing - walnut oil? - was topped with a little fried, sunshine yellow egg and 'bacon', actually wafer-thin crisped ventreche.

Little hand-made gnocchi had been toasted lightly and served with a mound of prawns - tiny crevettes grises - mushrooms and peppers. An immaculately trimmed canon of perfectly tender, perfectly pink Pyrènèes lamb sat on top of purèed shallot, peeled broad and white beans, the lot perfumed with fresh thyme. Order cheese off a set menu and you're likely to be disappointed; not here - seven generous chunks, including a rare artisan Brie, were arranged in a wheel from mild to explosive. Excellent.

Only a lobster Antiboise fell short of the mark, its flesh a little flabby, the olives, tomatoes and orange accompaniment not doing it any favours.

Target audience? Who knows. Perhaps the fabulously intriguing table next to ours whereon three foreign gentlemen of a certain age entertained two very young ladies dressed rather more extravagantly and less comprehensively than a weekday dinner would normally warrant ('She's going to fall out of that,' my date warned). Or oenophiles: there are 850 wines listed, an astonishing 40 per cent of which are available by the glass. I doubt London's groovers and shakers will warm to it, it's not nearly cool enough. Their loss.

La Rascasse
50a Berkeley Street, W1