Le Caprice - Any thoughts?

[Hasmi]

Please could some body give me their thoughts on Le Caprice. It is supposed to be good.

I have a table booked for a special occasion and was wondering if it is worth the wait of a month!

Any idea?

H

[Hasmi]

Please can someone help me on this????

[Andy Lynes]

I have never eaten there, but it's the sort of place catering industry types and celebs love to death because they are so well looked after. Its part of the same group as Ivy and J Sheeky, so you can expect a great time but not necessarily great food. Ramsay said in an Evening Standard piece that he goes there every Sunday night with his wife for a burger at the bar. AA Gill wrote a book about it so that may give you an idea of what it's like. Try sending Plotnicki a Private Message, he must have eaten there at some point I would have thought. What about the Brothers Majumdar? They must have done as well.

[Hasmi]

Thanks for the suggestions,

Youre a cherub!!

Hasmi

[Jon Tseng]

>Youre a cherub!!

The concept of Andy wearing a nappy and playing a harp fills me with endless amusement. Maybe he could come to the next dinner in role?

on Caprice I hear from work colleagues that the lobster is to be highly recommended (though they are over-broked city types rather than foodie types)

cheerio

j

[Jonathan Day]

I have had several good dinners at the Caprice, but it's hard to regard it as a "destination" restaurant...the menu just wasn't that interesting. The only dish I can recall was a very pleasant risotto made with butternut squash. Have eaten twice at the Ivy: like the Caprice, nothing wrong with it but nothing that thrilling. The food was very competently cooked.

Several friends (some good palates among them) think that J Sheekey is a truly wonderful restaurant. My experience has been far more mixed. At times it can be fine: the fish is reasonably fresh and it isn't usually overcooked. Potted shrimps were good, though you don't need to go to an expensive place to find them.

I've also been to Sheekey's and had badly cooked food (I remember a sole that was like eating cotton wadding) and rude service, including noisy demands to vacate tables at a set time, even though a dish we had ordered had not yet arrived.

For what it's worth my sense is that the menus at the Caprice and the Ivy have become rather common in London restaurants. For example the other day I had dinner at Le Palais du Jardin, a factory restaurant in Covent Garden. The dishes looked like an imitation of menus at the Caprice/Ivy, e.g. scallops with asparagus and foie gras (all three components served in mingy quantities on a giant plate, and virtually tasteless in any event). And the service was dreadful: two overworked waiters rushing between too many tables in our area.

Nonetheless I doubt that these dishes would have been as common a decade ago, when the Caprice and the Ivy gained their reputations.

[Tonyfinch]

Hesitate to comment as I was at Le Caprice about 6 years ago,although I gather it doesn't change much. Basically the food both there and at The Ivy is not the primary purpose.The menus are "safe",by which I mean that the famous and fashionable can eat from an eclectic menu which doesn't attempt to challenge or push the boundaries of gastromony in any direction. Ambience and,in the case of The Ivy,clientele are all important. I would only go to these restaurants if needing to feel yourself "fashionable" or gawping at celebrities is more important to you than the scoff.

I exempt J Sheekey from that. I have had two exemplary fish dinners there.

[Lady S]

Hasmi. I had lunch with a French coleague and dinner with a friend at Le Caprice in the last two weeks. In each case the food was good, but not outstanding. Service excellent, wine list decent, and great Cosmopolitans. The food is not unusual, but is usually well prepared. I sometimes have two appetizers because they are often more interesting than the main courses. Good luck and Bon Apetit