Grace and Flavour: Heliot

Leicester Square on Saturday night is for fools, tourists, hen-night harpies in comedy penis antlers and substance abusers in stained jogging bottoms using the phone boxes. Thus it was a dark day when ES instructed me to dine at Heliot restaurant inside The Hippodrome Casino. ‘You’ll enjoy it!’ said the editor. ‘The restaurant overlooks the gaming floor! You can see the poker tables and the slot machines!’ I tried several of my standard tantrums but to little avail. They really were determined that I ate foie gras terrine and millionaire’s mac ’n’ cheese on a landing overlooking jaundiced casino flies spaffing away their kids’ college money.

By the way, the mac ’n’ cheese is made ‘millionaire’ by the grating of truffle on top. London, despite austerity, is grating a lot of truffle right now. The way to handle this when you find it on your lasagne, shepherd’s pie, etc, is to say, ‘Mmmm, truffle, how delicious,’ and then pretend that you treat yourself now and then by having your own flown in from Provence.

Or you can be more honest, like I sometimes am, and say, ‘Well, it all tastes like feet now.’ I was served an eggnog-style cocktail the other day with a fresh truffle scraping, which I didn’t have the heart to tell the ‘mixologist’ smelled like a 1987 boy’s bedroom: farts, athlete’s foot and a base note of Insignia body spray.

So, after a four-day standoff with ES, in which I feigned death, eventually downgrading it to ‘poorly throat’, off I went to The Hippodrome, for my dinner.

On entering The Hippodrome — which has the feel of an entry-level, budget-price Vegas casino hotel — one will be asked: ‘Are you here to see the show?’ This question will be posed by every waiter, waitress, cloakroom attendant and bartender you meet, although none will be able to specify what ‘the show’ is, until eventually you demand a leaflet and discover the show is Stefanie Powers from Hart to Hart honking through some jazz standards. Then the answer will be: ‘No, I am not staying for the show.’ The other question is: ‘And will you be gambling?’ To which you’ll reply by casting an eye across the casino and thinking, ‘Why!? The movies lied to me, this is nothing like Ocean’s Eleven. I see no Brad Pitt and George Clooney lookalikes surrounded by sharp-suited high-rollers.’

In fact, it’s mostly little old Chinese grandads, blokes from Tulse Hill in BHS anoraks and slip-on moccasins who really can’t afford to be wasting this money, plus the odd older lady who is the family member no one wants to be stuck with for Christmas dinner. Not that she’ll turn up. She’s down the casino.

Perplexingly, after all this, the food at Heliot, despite the view and the clientele, is actually delicious. Despite the stag party of Essex boys with 1992 Simply Red-era ponytails. Despite the very pretty, diligent, charming waitress bringing a mini roulette wheel to my table halfway through, so I could win a discount off my chilli salt squid with smoked haddock brandade and pickled radish. The squid was, it must be said, beautifully done. The tuna tataki, Asian apple & herb salad was fabulous, too. This is ambitious, accomplished cooking, some of the most comforting food you’ll find in the West End, but sadly served in Satan’s armpit. I can find no fault whatsoever with the lobster fish fingers with triple-cooked chips and wasabi mayonnaise, and if I did, the owner would question why every scrap of everything we ordered was inhaled in moments. They’d say: ‘So, Grace, if you really had such a terrible time at the casino, why did you Instagram your pudding?’ But the rich slab of chocolate mousse with crumbled chocolate brownie and fresh blackberries was really rather incredible. I needed to share it with the world. Or at least the 87-year-old Chinese grandad who’d just come up trumps on blackjack. After three champagne mojitos I’d grown to sort of like those guys.