Hakkasan Mayfair

Mr Oil and Mr Vinegar have been to Hakkasan Mayfair, one of the newest fine restaurants in the area.

MrV: The Chinese restaurants I grew up with seem to be a thing of the past. Scuttling Chinamen and mountains of gelatinous food. I rather miss them.
MrO: What absolute nonsense. No one can possibly miss mono-sodium glutamate or faux-servile waiters bowing and scraping.
MrV: Or stray pets in the food, I suppose.
MrO: The old high street Chinese restaurant may be largely a thing of the past but it was very useful for educating the British palate away from fish and chips or boiled beef and potatoes.
MrV: There’s none of that here, is there? It’s all rather fancy – Chinese with a posh European twist probably sums it up.
MrO: Sesame prawn toast with foie gras and peking duck with beluga caviar are perfect examples.
MrV: What is this Royal sweetcorn soup, though? Did someone crown the Jolly Green Giant?
MrO: I found all the food we had quite exceptional. The Shanghai dumpling was delicious but the soft-shell crab was outstanding and the mound of crispy fried egg-yolk threads it was buried in gave the dish a completely new texture.
MrV: Yes, I enjoyed that. I thought the salt and pepper squid was confusing – the squid was cooked perfectly but the batter was a bit chewy. How can that happen? Perhaps they were sitting around for a while.
MrO: Our glamorous young female guest seemed to enjoy them without complaint.
MrV: Well, you know these young girls. She was probably so impressed with the surroundings that we could have given her Pot Noodles and she wouldn’t have noticed.
MrO: What rot. She was very discerning. She agreed with me that the pak choi was quite unexpectedly brilliant. Who would have thought that pak choi could excite one?
MrV: They were very small. I wonder if they just gave us the hearts or whether you can buy tiny pak choi. It was certainly tender, but at £11 for a vegetable side dish it would have to be damned special.
MrO: The main courses were very fine. Usually in oriental restaurants, I find that the starters are the thing and the main courses a little disappointing, but that wasn’t the case here. The spicy prawns...
MrV: ...which weren’t spicy...
MrO: ...which may not have been particularly spicy, were nonetheless excellent. What about the sweet and sour pork?
MrV: Sweet and sour dishes in conventional Chinese restaurants have always rather disgusted me. They taste like orange-flavoured ketchup, or something. Fit only for children and their nannies. But this stuff was very good. None of that cloying mixture of sugar and vinegar, although for all I know both ingredients may well have been in there, but whatever it was worked well.
MrO: I liked the Peking-style duck. It might have been interesting to try the one with the caviar but I thought the one without was more than adequate and perfectly reasonably priced at £19.50.
MrV: The prices here are pretty steep.
MrO: Well, you say that, but our first courses cost between £8 and £13.50 and none of our main course choices more than £20, which is bordering on very reasonable for this part of London. The fact that the wine cost £55 a bottle and you insisted on ordering two of them had a far greater impact on the cost.
MrV: It was quite a pleasant Chablis, though, wasn’t it?
MrO: Agreed. On balance, I think I prefer this Hakkasan to the original one off Tottenham Court Road.
MrV: Me too. I think on that basis we should call this one the Godfather II Hakkasan.
MrO: The general manager looks a bit like someone from the Godfather II, don’t you think?
MrV: No, he looks more like Gomez from the Addams Family. But not the Adams family that hang out nearby in Shepherd Market, I hasten to add.


Mr Oil, Mr Vinegar and their youthful female friend ate prawn crackers, three starters, three main courses and three puddings and drank two vodka-and-tonics and two bottles of wine, plus coffee, water etc, at a total cost of about £310.

Hakkasan Mayfair
17 Bruton Street
London
W1J 6QB

+44 207 907 1888
mayfairreservation@hakkasan.com
www.hakkasan.com/Mayfair