Arts Club Dover Street, Mayfair

Mr Vinegar has been taken to the relaunched and newly-fashionable Arts Club Dover Street in Mayfair, by Mrs Oil, who now regrets deputising for her husband.

MrsO: Sorry about the problems.
MrV: They were apparent from the outset. The reception area was utterly shambolic. The young girls in charge do not have a clue. Perhaps they are more members of Arjun Waney’s family drafted in to pad the staff of this place
MrsO: Who is Arjun Waney?
MrV: He’s the entrepreneur who’s bought the Arts Club along with some property bloke called Gary. Waney and Gary. Dear oh dear. Waney is behind Zuma and Roka and La Petite Maison. Most of the people on the board of the Arts Club are called Waney – apart from the Duke of Edinburgh. He’s the official patron. Lord knows what he thinks of the service, never mind the members. Mind you, he’s used to Palace servants so presumably anything seems good to him.
MrsO: Well I don’t know about Palace servants but I think you should give the young girls on reception a chance. They’re only young.
MrV: It was a relief to get into the brasserie dining room, which looked wonderful, I must confess. I hadn’t been for 10 years or so and in those days it all looked pretty dingy. In fact, I first started coming here in the 1980s and I must say, the food was quite disgusting in those days. Most of its members worked round the corner at the Arts Council and treated the place as their canteen.
MrsO: It was a beautiful dining room full of natural light and looking most inviting.
MrV: Yes, and it seemed impressive that there were six chefs working behind that sort of open-plan kitchen bar, but they all seemed very frantic given that there was hardly anyone in the place when we arrived.
MrsO: Well, to be fair, we were very early.
MrV: True, but it was long past sun-up so I could see no reason for our waitress to be plodding around like something from a horror movie. It was all I could do not to call her Igor.
MrsO: You did. You said “Our waitress is Igor” and she heard you.
MrV: Yes but I covered quickly and said “A very eager waitress indeed.” Anyway, I was somewhat mollified, momentarily, by the rather enticing menu.
MrsO: It looked perfect for a brasserie. The prawn cocktail was sensational the previous time I was here so I thought the crab would be interesting, and it was excellent, if a little late.
MrV: I was not at all happy that they didn’t have the Padron peppers as advertised. Why couldn’t Igor have told us the Padrons were off when it gave us the menu. And then to make matters worse, they brought my deep-fried courgettes fifteen minutes before your long-suffering crab arrived.
MrsO: They explained that. The waitress and that very young manager told us that the chef can only produce food as he sees fit.
MrV: What the devil does that mean – as he sees fit? It should be as ordered. It should be as the paying customer sees fit. The chef, Raphael Duntoye, has worked in some very serious kitchens including La Tante Claire. When he ran La Petite Maison he was much praised, so what’s this primadonna nonsense doing in his kitchen now?
MrsO: Well, we enjoyed our langoustine, at least. Mine were quite delicious and also looked very splendid.
MrV: Yours did look good and so did most of mine - except for the old one which had not been cleaned. And why couldn’t they serve the side orders at the same time as the main course? Why did they bring my fries when I was still eating my starter? Oh yes, because “the chef can only produce food as he sees fit.” I really wonder who is running this kitchen. Was Duntoye actually in charge that day or had he drafted in some sort of pantomime chef to give the kitchen staff a good laugh at the customers’ expense?
MrsO: Goodness, you were upset by it all, weren’t you? Anyway, what did you think of the Café Liegeois. It is their star dessert.
MrV: They poured coffee over the chocolate which is very dramatic, but this was not the correct presentation of the classic French dessert, as there was no crème Chantilly. It is not an optional ingredient with this dish. Before he became a chef, Duntoye was an engineer. Do you suppose he whimsically left bits out and stuck on other bits too early or too late when he was engineering things? I must find out what things he engineered and steer well clear of them. Perhaps he was responsible for engineering the taps in the lavatory as they didn’t work, despite the noisy efforts of a rather sinister-looking employee – a friend of Igor’s, no doubt.
MrsO: Aren’t you taking it all a bit seriously? It is only a club, after all.
MrV: They call it a club, but it did not seem very friendly to me, with unsavoury looking members in polyester shirts dotted about the place and prices far higher than those in respectable clubs – all for haphazard food and very surly service
MrsO: You have been very strident in your criticisms and I must admit it was not their best day, but will you give it another chance?
MrV: Not when there is so much competition from people who passionately care about service and ambience. I do not want ever to come back.

Mrs Oil and Mr Vinegar had a starter and main course each and shared one pudding, washed down with two bottles of Gavi di Gavi (at £55 each) for a total cost of about £250 (excludes an annual membership subscription of £1,000).

The Arts Club
40 Dover Street
Mayfair
London
W1S 4NP

+44 (0) 207 499 8581

reservations@theartsclub.co.uk

http://www.theartsclub.co.uk