Spoon + at Sanderson, London

[tony h]

My food partner in crime & I we went to Spoon (an Alain Ducasse restaurant) at Sanderson last Thursday night. Sanderson is part of Ian Schrager’s burgeoning hotel empire (he of Studio 54 fame) designed by Philippe Starck which seems to base its ideas on soft billowing fabric walls, thoughtful lightning and a few to-die-for sofas. For example, on arrival you are met with that old crowd pleaser: Dali’s Mae West lips sofa. The reception is located on the left & a dark & cosy bar, with suitably uncomfortable chairs, and the main bar runs most of the length of the hotel front. The music is fucking loud. Hanging out are a significant pool of London’s chic wanna be’s. Skipping past what resembles the bar crowd from Star Wars we make out way to Spoon (an Alain Ducasse restaurant) placed not very thoughtfully at the end of the bar, the bar with the fucking loud music. There is no division, wall, or anechoic chamber between the bar and Spoon (an Alain Ducasse restaurant) sitting area. Fortunately, my food partner in crime knew there was outdoor seating and so asked for a table there.

Sanderson was originally an office block (I guess) which has been renovated. Built during the 60s (again, a guess) consequently it now resembles a 60s office block that has been renovated. In the centre is a courtyard where some of Spoon’s (an Alain Ducasse restaurant) tables have been placed. With the surrounding 60s renovated office block they have managed to recreate an up market staff canteen. A challenging task even for the gifted Mr Starck. At the other end if the up market staff canteen is the outside standing area for the bar with the fucking loud music. The maitre’d was sweet enough to arrange for the music sound to be lowered so I could hear my food partner in crime without straining too many vocal chords but a substantial part of the conversation did rely on lip reading and hand gestures.

The menu is a do it yourself mix and match ensemble similar to Wok-Wok but with napkins and linen. The pre-starters – soft cheese with herbs and onion compote with shrimp – arrived, presented in large spoons, and were accompanied but the first good sign of the evening – exceptional bread. The wine list was delivered and it took quite some time to find a wine I could afford. My choice was rejected not by my food partner in crime but by the sommelier. Maybe its against the rules to sell wine lower that 40 pounds. His choice was pretty good – an Australian red - but there no French red’s below 50 pounds that I could see. The thoughtful lighting of the hotel didn’t extend to the up market staff canteen sitting area of Spoon (an Alain Ducasse restaurant) so it was difficult to read. The food menu, the non-brail version, was also difficult to read now that the sun had set. The starters were less mix and match than the mains giving us little opportunity to truly extend known gastronomic limits. My food partner in crime went for the vegetarian ravioli: 5 little ravioli were presented which did taste wonderful with subtle star anise undertone. This was accompanied with a puree of green herb served in a little mortar and pestle. 15 pounds. I went for old faithful – foie gras – terrine of FG with chicken breast – expertly cooked. 20 pounds.

Mains were more challenging as the idea is to select a meat, fish or poultry followed by a sauce then a vegetable accompaniment. The chefs at Spoon (an Alain Ducasse restaurant), inspired in by your inspirational choices will then work on creating something I’m sure you’ve never had before. We chose the squab and veal. The vegetable side dish was raw & roast asparagus (for the squab) and vegetarian moussaka for the veal. An oversight on my part caused me to order the same sauce as my partner in crime. Also, accidentally, this turned out to be sweet and sour. The squab was, well, squabish. The veal was genuinely wonderfully and expertly cooked. The sweet and sour was a mistake – but I’ll take the blame for that little mistake. The asparagus was asparagussy and the moussaka had string vinegar undertone that didn’t sit well on the tongue. By now the sun had set even further and no clear glimpse of the food could be seen. Hovering our table’s candle above the food didn’t shed much light. The mains were in the region of 25 pounds.

By now the music from the bar with the fucking loud music had gradually increased so we decided to skip dessert. I do admit that I wasn’t entirely inspired to indulge on the predominantly chocolate based desserts to which my food partner in crime is slightly allergic.

The bill at Spoon (an Alain Ducasse restaurant) came to 150 pounds.

The meal did have its moments – the bread & the perfectly cooked veal. Spoon (an Alain Ducasse restaurant) seems to be trying for something new - fine dining in a disco - but its not really for me.

Are all Spoons (an Alain Ducasse restaurant chain) similarly loud?

Ian Schrager

Spoon (an Alain Ducasse Restaurant)

[nightscotsman]

Interesting - I had dinner at the Spoon Food + Wine in Paris in May. It was much lower key than your experience sounds and there was no fucking loud music at all. The interior was done in soothing, inoffensive pastels and the most creative touch were the place settings: each one was unique and non-matching. The staff was extremely enthusiastic about the menu - almost too eager to explain and be helpful - and the food was delicious with very creative presentations. And I don't remember the bill being quite as high as yours.

Also, after dessert (which was killer) I was presented with a little bag of warm, freshly baked cookies to take away: chocolate/chocolate chunk and oatmeal raisin.

Sorry your experence at the London Spoon (an Alain Ducasse restaurant) wasn't wonderful, but do try the Paris Spoon Food + Wine when you can.

[Miss R S]

Spoon (an Alain Ducasse restaurant) at Le Saint Geran (Mauritius) is fucking quiet, with excellent waiting staff and a great looking kitchen. Still had the same expensive wine list though, I found the food very enjoyable. I think the trick is to go for the recommended combinations rather than the pick and mix. The food was equally expensive.

After dinner you get the chance to listen to the best hotel band I've ever heard. The versions of Master Blaster and Black Magic Woman (available on request) were played Fucking loud (complete with 2 minute guitar, bongo, drum and keyboard solos) long after everyone had gone to bed and had the bar staff pleading with them to turn the music down!

Edit Disclosure: Whoops! Just posted under my girlfriends name in error, I won't reveal who I am though.

[Akiko]

I had dinner at Spoon back in May, which was so unimpressive that I can barely remember anything about it... except that it was ludicrously expensive.

I did however like the decor at the Sanderson. The phillipe starck touch runs all the way to the laundry bags. They give you beautiful white sacks with a rose emblazoned on it to put your things in (similar style to the chairs with the single eye on the back of them).

And there is a very "designer" bar called purple decked out in guess what colour. Its usually quiet and serves great vodkas and martinis. Again, ludicrously expensive.

[Gavin Jones]

Edit Disclosure: Whoops! Just posted under my girlfriends name in error, I won't reveal who I am though.

We'll have no trouble here.

Very funny review (a Blind Lemon Higgins Report).

[jayrayner]

Ah, Spoon+ I remember it well, much as I recall my first dental extraction. Clearly it must be congratulated for possessing one quality: consistency. here, from a couple of years ago when it first opened, is my review which I share with you because I don't think I'd express it any better now (and LML feel free to throw one of your pthy repsonses at me.)

Whenever a critic writes a review of a restaurant in one of the achingly hip hotels owned by Ian Schrager - the man behind the Royalton in New York, St Martin’s Lane in London and now the Sanderson on a site just North of Oxford Street - a hand-written card arrives, as if from the man himself. The one I received after I expressed my complete disdain for Asia de Cuba at St Martin’s Lane said something like ‘Please do try us again’ which was, and remains, a victory of hope over expectation.

Can I suggest, Mr Schrager, that when you come to sending me a card after this review of Spoon at The Sanderson it says: ‘I apologise for running such a nasty money-grabbing operation.’ For Spoon is, without doubt, the most outrageous exercise in separating punters from their cash currently at work in the capital. Not that the punters appear to mind; it took me three weeks to get a table. Spoon is what they call hot.

The night I went the bar, a grand rectangular affair of onyx and shimmering lights, was packed with the sort of people who prefer mirrors on the horizontal rather than the vertical, the better to powder their noses. Perhaps they are also the kind of people who don’t notice prices, for it is here that the outrages begin. While I waited for my companion I ordered a glass of South African Sauvignon Blanc. I was told it was £7.50 and, swallowing hard, handed over a tenner. I got back £1.40. I looked at the receipt. Apparently a 15% discretionary service charge had been added to my bill. For the serving of a glass of wine at the bar. This is one way to guarantee that a fine glass of white wine will leave a nasty taste in the mouth.

Thus fleeced we were lead to the dining room which, again, is a clever space of pale shades in which everybody can look at everybody else. The menus, like the prices, are of staggering proportions. If you were caught in a forest on a rainy night one of these could easily serve as a bivouac. But then the menu needs to be big to contain the silliness within. I had always thought that one of the reasons for going to a restaurant is so that clever people, who know how to cook, can come up with lots of interesting ways to combine interesting ingredients. Not at Spoon.

The great Alain Ducasse, who has sired not one but two restaurants in France boasting three Michelin stars each, is here the consultant. His big idea is to break dishes up into their ingredients and then let you mix and match. Or, as the illiterate menu puts it, ‘If you are like switching and changing we invite you to zig zag through the different columns and think the unthinkable.’

For our starters we were not yet brave enough to really go for it so we chose two of the non-fragmented dishes. I had pork and shrimp ravioli with a piquant tomato sauce which were fine, the kind of thing you could find in china town for £3.50, and certainly not fine enough for a price tag of £14. My companion’s ceviche of seabass - the fish ‘cooked’ in a citrus marinade - was rather good: delicate, fresh, succulent. As it should be for £16.

For my main course I decided to try and think the unthinkable by combining the grilled saddle of lamb at £20 with the truffle sauce that was meant to go with the veal and the macaroni cheese which, after tasting it, I concluded should not have gone with anything. I was intrigued to see how the kitchen would bring these ad-libbed set of ingredients together. The answer is they don’t. The lamb and the solid gummy strip of macaroni cheese were situated half a foot away from each other on the plate like a dysfunctional married couple on the verge of divorce. As to the sauce, that came in a little bowl on the side, complete with a congealed skin, which was attractive. My companion’s grilled squid (a mere £17) came with the same tomato sauce as with my starter and a little splodge of truly nasty mango gunk.

The wine list has nothing below £20. We chose the second cheapest, a bottle of New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc at £23. Spoon clearly didn’t think this was enough. It appeared on the bill as £45, bringing the total including that ‘discretionary’ service charge to around £165. I complained. The bill went down to £136. I gave them my credit card. Back came the receipt with the service charge box left open. I knocked the tip down to 10%. When they saw what I had done all hell let loose. What had happened, they asked? What had they done? I explained. Oh, they said. After a five minute pause they announced they would denote my table ‘non-service.’ Hence a bill of £119.

Many of you could be forgiven for becoming rather tired of the recent run of reviews: new London restaurants each worse than the last, throwing up bills well north of £100. For what it’s worth I see this and the previous two as a kind of trilogy, a description of what happens when the economics of restaurants becomes so perverse that the last thing to matter is the food. It’s tiresome and it’s depressing and I too have had enough of it. Normal service will now resume. Promise.

Spoon+ at Sanderson, 50 Berners Street, London W1. Tel 020 7300 1400. Price of dinner for two including wine and service, whatever the management thinks it can get away with.

[Simon Majumdar]

I recently had the misfortune to go to Asia de Cuba @ The St Martin's Lane Hotel for a business meal and I can say that it was one of the nastiest experiences of my eating out life. A truly horrid place

Obviously a Schraeger trait

S

[Miss J]

Or, as the illiterate menu puts it, ‘If you are like switching and changing we invite you to zig zag through the different columns and think the unthinkable.’

Wow. That's almost alarmingly bad.