This article was also published in the Financial Times.
I was recently talking to a very successful restaurateur who was trying to come to terms with an unprecedented professional quandary. He had just been shown by a developer what he described as ‘possibly the best location in town’ but, in what appeared to be its only possible layout, it was operationally unworkable.
The location is so commercially attractive because it is on a very busy, pedestrianised thoroughfare that would offer its customers great views across London and it is in an area that is capable of generating excellent lunch and dinner business seven days a week. It was, however, laid out over two floors with the kitchens in the basement.
There are numerous restaurants that operate in such a fashion but increasingly restaurateurs are looking for one large open space that can accommodate both the main kitchen and their customers with perhaps a preparation area in a less costly basement. There are several reasons for this.
Firstly, food definitely tastes better the closer it is to where it is cooked. Secondly, the increasingly common trend is for food that is cooked as speedily as many now want it to be served. Customers don’t like to wait and begin to feel anxious if they cannot see where their food is coming from, an unforeseen consequence perhaps of so many open kitchens. It is also a well known fact among restaurateurs that it is always a challenge to induce customers upstairs and away from tables on the ground floor because these rooms are always thought of as second best. And then, for the restaurateur, there is the added extra cost of running the food and wine up and the dirty plates and empty bottles down.
The layout of a proposed restaurant space can therefore shape its future success as much as its location. While today Nobu in the Metropolitan Hotel is one of London’s biggest grossing restaurants, the hotel’s owners had initially wanted something from the stable of The Ivy and Le Caprice. But once the prospective owners had walked the distance between the kitchens and the furthest table overlooking Hyde Park, it became obvious that too much hot food would arrive lukewarm, something that is not a problem for waiters carrying plates of sushi and sashimi.
The distance from our table to the kitchen was what distinguished a disappointing initial meal at Orrery in Marylebone High Street from a second much more exciting one. Now almost 10 years old, this restaurant has never lost its air of simple, unobtrusive elegance but the kitchen has ridden a little bit of a roller coaster since the departure of Chris Galvin.
The obviously talented Tristan Mason is now in charge but not quite master of a narrow dining room whose windows are left open on a cool evening and where the kitchen is at the far end separated by a small internal walkway. As a result, our two main courses, a fillet of beef with an oxtail pastille and a grouse that had been taken off the bone in the kitchen once it had been cooked (thereby exacerbating the cooling effect), were not anywhere near hot enough despite the fleet-footed waiters.
But on a return visit when we sat at the table closest to the kitchen, all the food was served as it should be and demonstrated that Mason is a chef to watch. The excellent wine list supervised by Robert Giorgione and the £25 three course lunch menu, which also applies on Sunday evenings, are further attractions.
Two recent dinners, one Japanese and the other Middle Eastern, showed me how restaurateurs can make the best use of a space that had in one instance proved unsuccessful and in a second seemed initially highly unattractive. Both dinners were not only great fun but also excellent value by London standards.
Dominic Ford had been looking for a site for an authentic yakitori restaurant using the professionally approved bincho charcoal when the opportunity arose to return to the Oxo Tower. Ford had been responsible for opening the Oxo restaurant and brasserie on the eighth floor 10 years ago (and he remains one of the few restaurateurs I know who do not seem to have aged). He has returned this time to the second floor, dividing the long, wide space into a brasserie, Tamesa, on one side, and the yakitori restaurant Bincho on the other.
Perhaps it was going up in the lift with eight Japanese businessmen that conveyed an aura of authenticity about the whole meal, only slightly dissipated by the thumping techno music that is so popular in Japan. But I think it has more to do with how intelligently Ford has effectively coped with a space where everything close to the windows has to be kept for the customers’ views across the river. The opposite side is taken up with the large open grills where the ‘guardians of the fire’, as these chefs are known, cook at speed.
The yakitori dishes comprise almost every conceivable piece of chicken, quail and duck on a skewer; those under the kushiyaki heading include scallop, tuna aubergine with miso and ginko nuts; and then there are the ochazuke dishes, the traditional way of finishing such a meal with green tea, rice and salmon, sea bream or tuna. Only the small Japanese boy who thought that the waitress was there simply for him to play hide and seek with seemed to have more fun than us. Our bill for two came to £55.
What Tony Kitous, an experienced Middle Eastern restaurateur, first thought of the basement site he has skilfully converted into Kenza in a modern development near Liverpool Street station just off the atmospheric Devonshire Square I can only imagine – particularly as when I approached the restaurant at about 8.30pm I was stopped by a besuited security guard who wanted to know whether I worked there.
Kenza, down a rose bedecked spiral staircase, is much more enchanting than a windowless modern basement deserves to be, thanks to a clever layout which divides the large space into an atmospheric restaurant and a comfortable lounge where plates of mezze, cocktails – and one non-alcoholic cocktail, a tadara made with tomato juice and harissa that has the kick of a Bloody Mary – are served. Deep, comfortable and apparently romantic alcoves have been introduced on both sides that can easily accommodate up to six, although getting out of them after dinner can prove quite a challenge.
Kitous has solved the perennial challenge of ordering Middle Eastern food (too many mezze leads to too many unfinished main courses) by devising a menu that offers two mezze and a main course for £28 and three mezze and a main course for £33. The pumpkin kibbes, grilled halloumi and the arayes, filled with minced lamb, were all excellent as were the lamb shank cooked in a tagine, the marinated chicken and the mashawy, skewers of lamb, chicken and marinated quails.
With a broad range of set menus from vegetarian to lamb and fish, Kenza would make an ideal venue for an alternative Christmas party – with or without the belly dancers.
Orrery, 020-7616 8000, www.orreryrestaurant.co.uk,
Bincho Yakitori, 020-7803 0858, www.bincho.co.uk,
Kenza, 020-7929 5533, www.kenza-restaurant.co.uk