A Capital Meal In London: Ten Years Ago

[Pink Pig Time Machine by Wilfrid: May 19, 2008]

My Spring trip to London in May 1998 began with a good dinner meal at the Capital Restaurant, not far from Harrod's.

Well, actually it began with a wedding in Holland Park, and - since I hadn't slept on the plane - a thirty-six hour day.

I took a quick nap about halfway through the wedding reception, but it's amazing how a steady flow of beer, buffet and bridesmaids keeps you going.  I slept like either a pig or a log, probably both, then headed for Soho and checked into my regular hotel, Hazlitt's on Frith Street.

It was a Sunday, so dim sum at the rambling Chuen Cheng Ku substituted for breakfast, followed by a stroll through the second-hand bookshops on the Charing Cross Road.

The Capital Restaurant - in fact the dining room at the posh Capital Hotel - was still under the command of Philip Britten, who raised it to a high ranking before giving way to Eric Chavot.  This was my first dinner there.  Chef Britten's house style was a light version of classic-formal, infused and flavored oils and vinegars standing in for wine reductions and cream or butter sauces.

After snacking on fresh radishes (which you'd think some current New York back-to-the-land chefs had invented) and sipping a flute of the old widow, I embarked on a tasting menu.  Seasonal asparagus was balanced on a savory tuile.  Foie gras was served as a mini-burger with tiny pommes frites and a beetroot salad; I thought it hilarious at the time.  "Scalded" lobster was accented with cumin, and followed, after the interval of a timbale of aubergine., by langoustine in a preparation, of which my notes frankly state "can't remember".

Rack of lamb turned out to be one lamb chop - not unreasonably in a menu this length - and was paired with some Merguez sausage.  Cheeses, and no dessert but petits fours with the coffee.  A 1993 Corton with the meal, a 1963 Armagnac to digest it.  Elegant, deft, and very expensive.  I was to return to The Capital several times over the following years.

On Monday I caught up with sleep and family, in that order, and on Tuesday with friends boasting a new-born baby.  Time for one more dinner: a return to Richard Corrigan's secluded Lindsay House on Romilly Street.

After a thimble of seafood bisque to open proceedings, I ate a typical Corrigan combination, sautéed squid with black pudding.  Pork stewed with apricots followed, and a helping of mashed potatoes.  A curious dessert of pumpkin with bitter cocoa ice.  Modern Irish?  Whatever you call it, Corrigan's cuisine was still an enjoyable tangle of the traditional and the odd.

That was a fast round-trip, and the rest of the week on my return to New York was fairly peaceful.  A business lunch at the Monkey Bar Restaurant - still, I think, my only meal there.  Oysters followed by grilled trout.  An omakase lunch at Sushi Zen in midtown.  A casual dinner at Au Troquet, a little French bistro in a Greenwich Village backstreet: warm saucisse d'ail with potatoes, a poached spring chicken, tarte tatin, a bottle of - couldn't you guess? - Côtes du Rhône.

My first visit to the Museum of the City of New York, then I finished the week making and eating boeuf carbonnade at home.

Next week, brushes with greatness: Mario Batali and Mark Nadler.