Most important restaurant ever to open in London?

[macrosan]

I totally agree with you, Tony. It's cynical, it's a scam. The good news, however, is that it's probably commercial suicide The British (and especially the London) public are not as easily conned as this, and I'm certain they'll vote with their credit cards.

I'm not even sure I'd want to be taken by someone else It would embarrass me that they were bering taken in, and if I had a choice I'd quickly suggest they spend the same money at RHR or wherever.

[Simon Majumdar]

I compare this opening with similar openings in Las Vegas. London in many ways is similar. There is a huge amount of money here and people who are willing to spend it on eating out. One of the ways to attract people is to persuade those with a track record to attach their name to a restaurant and to draw people in by way of the reflected glory

I would imagine at Sketch that people will still say that they have eaten at the new "Gagnaire" place even though he is not in the kitchen. The notion is that the restaurant should work to the levels and standards that he demands in his home restaurant. Some times this is the case, sometimes not.

In Vegas every hotel is littered with versions of restaurants from around the world. In some cases they can be quite good ( The ONLY good meal I have ever had at a JGV place was at JG Prime in Bellagio's )n other cases they can be truly dreadful when all that links the restaurant to the star chef is the name above the door and a lot of press. I suspect Sketch may end up in the former category and be rather good ( I am booked there in Feb for Rob's birthday ) just as I suspected that the Trotter place now aborted would be in the latter

S

[Tonyfinch]

I'm not saying such a restaurant can't be any good. I'm saying it should not be charging the same prices as the chef's home restaurant- in this case more than any other restaurant in London by some margin

[macrosan]

Interesting point about Vegas, Simon, and it occurs to me that the idea of attaching celebrity names to restaurants is very much an American thing. In Myrtle Beach (very much a golf resort) I have found Sam Snead's Grill, Greg Norman's Grill, Ben Hogan's Seafood Restaurant and so on. None of those golfers is a reputed chef and some of them are actually very dead but somehow the Americans seem to place a commercial benefit on the use of their name.

It's an established procedure in New York to try to establish some restaurants as "celebrity watching" places. The reviews contain more about who (allegedly) eats there than what food they serve. Planet Hollywood was founded on the principle.

Generally, with the exception of The Ivy, I don't believe that restaurant-goers are impressed or as influenced by star hysteria.

[cabrales]

The February 2003 edition of Gourmet contains an article entitled "Letters from ...London". On Sketch, the article notes: "allegedly the most expensive (talk is of around $16 million) and one of the largest (even bigger than cavernous Mezzo) in London.... a dozen amuse-bouches shoot out to the table, one after another. As in Paris, the emphasis at Sketch is all about bursting flavors, small bites, and strange combinations [strange would be the right word, in my assessment of the Paris restaurant]. A bland-sounding appetizer of vegetables, for example, is anything but, and includes a cup of parsley, coriander and tarragon juice; little chunks of turnip in cide broth; a puree of sweet potato; and Jerusalem artichokes done three ways. Sketch is, without doubt, the most dazzling restaurant to open in London in years. With a dazzling tab..."

[Matthew Grant]

Quaglinos

[Andy Lynes]

No way. It's got to be Mezzo's.