Grace Dent reviews Hutong at the Shard

Despite the fact that I spent most of 2011 mumbling an ancient Carlisle curse at the cranes in London Bridge, the Shard has been completed. I hate the Shard. Please, pull up a chair, I can grizzle about this for hours. It’s big, but not remotely clever. At least the Gherkin and the Walkie Talkie have the common decency to be fit. The Shard is a graceless slab of cement and glass farting away to nothing at its peak, making the architectural equivalent of a sad clown trombone noise. Type ‘Is the Shard...’ into Google and the first suggestion was ‘Finished?’ because it’s so ‘non-Shardy’ Londoners didn’t have a clue.

Then Oblix opened — the restaurant that nobody is raving about — offering ‘jazz brunches’, to which I thought: ‘Would the Shard be any more palatable if I was inside it eating Wagyu beef while enduring a bunch of men in full funk-overbite mode clanking through a three-hour version of ‘Ol’ Man River’, playing some of the right notes in almost the right order?’ No, I thought, no indeed it would not. And what about the Daft Punk album playback in the Shard, would that break my embargo? No way. Not budging.

And then, last week, I was asked whether I wanted to go to Hutong on Level 33 of the Shard, to David Yeo’s new pocket-bruising, 130-cover restaurant serving contemporary northern Chinese cuisine, and sample his new signature dishes such as ‘Red Lantern’ (crispy soft-shell crab with Sichuan dried chilli, £28) or chilled spiced razor clams steeped in Chinese rose wine (£13), or crispy de-boned lamb ribs (£26). Aaaaagh, dammit. Yes. Yes, I do. And do I want to eat Peking duck (£58. Yes, I know), hand-prepared and roasted in the restaurant’s dedicated duck-roasting kitchen and then roll said duck in handmade pancakes while watching a London sunset from a table situated higher than the London Eye? Oh, ruddy hell, this is embarrassing: yes.

I love duck and I love crab and I love gazing down on London, the city I love most in the whole world, drinking in its beauty and piecing together all the roads and lanes that I’ve trampled and tottered along for decades. Let’s face it, the London Eye is totally wasted on tourists; they don’t know what they’re looking at. So I checked whether humble pie was on the menu and went to Hutong.

Gaining access isn’t a casual affair, requiring one to pass at least a dozen women in workwear kimonos, all of whom question you on where you’re going before warmly wishing you a wonderful evening. But inside, Hutong is undeniably elegant. Face-slappingly impressive. Traditional Chinese red lanterns, hand-carved, wood-panelled ‘moon gates’, walls of tiled tea bricks and vintage tea canisters, elegant Chinese crockery and tableware, and an army of eager waiters. The snippish £58 duck is escorted to the table by its own personal chef, who carves it at the table into a pretty plate of skin.

There are plenty of bangs, trumpets and whistles in a dinner here, so it’s perfect for out-of-towners or special clients. The soft-shell crab appears like a Game of Thrones prop, in a lantern full of bright red chillies. Neither of these dishes were the most remarkable things I’ve eaten this month but, nevertheless, I can’t think of a better place to drink a glass of champagne, eat some Ma La chilli prawns and take stock of why one is actually quite fortunate to be one.

That said, £58 for a duck — even with a side of the most breathtaking view in London — still seems a little, well, quackers.