The Capital

Great food, great service. I am not sure what happened with the other people here and the quality of service. But it truly felt like we had two personal waiters catering to our every need and more.

We went for their birthday menu with the selection of wines. The combinations were perfect and the wines were great. The food was fantastic up there with some of the top French restaurants.
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Alexander Vaksman
9 Overall rating
Food 9 | Service 9 | Atmosphere 9 | Value for money 8
Monday, June 27, 2011

good food
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yugendhar
10 Overall rating
Food 10 | Service 10 | Atmosphere 10 | Value for money 10
Monday, February 21, 2011

Agree with the reviewers below - went to Capital last year, one of the most enjoyable meals I've had - good food, good service. Went back on Saturday - it felt completely different - yes, I should have checked before hand, did not realise the chef (Eric Chavot?) had left after all it's one of the more established restaurants in London. It was completely lack lustre, both food and service. Definitely not a 2 michelin starred restaurant, what a disappointment compared to last year. Very run of the mill, bordering on poor. Even the dining room looked tired (with rather grubby scatter cushions.... not that this matters if the food's good!)
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3 Overall rating
Food 3 | Service 3 | Atmosphere 3 | Value for money 1
Monday, August 02, 2010

The Food is good, however the Service is abominable. The are much better restaurants with excellent service available. Why waste the money?
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Sohrab V
3 Overall rating
Food 6 | Service 1 | Atmosphere 1 | Value for money 3
Thursday, May 06, 2010

Had a brilliant and relaxing boozey lunch with some old friends whilst visiting London last week...they had advised The Capital for a scrumptious and very reasonable lunch, as we are all or at one time in the industry we can be highly critical and we know how important for us all to have a really decent lunch and of course a very complimentary wine list and I have to say that The Capital ticked all the boxes! I was a little dubious prior to going (having read the reviews) but I must say had a fantastic lunch and would happily recommend to friends and colleagues alike, there is no going wrong with The Capital!
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Jessica B
10 Overall rating
Food 10 | Service 10 | Atmosphere 10 | Value for money 9
Monday, April 26, 2010

I was worried about our meal after reading the reviews on line but friends wanted to go so we did. Went on a Sunday lunch and was very happily surprised. New chef is exactly that, new. Not trying to be the old one and doing something different but good. Great beef on the trolley with amazing yorkshires. Service was friendly without being in your face. £35 for 3 courses was good value and I know there are some seriously expensive wines if you wanted them but we were happy with our bottle at £30. It was full so the atmosphere was good.

Not sure about the art work on the walls but that wasn't why we were there.

Very enjoyable lunch, I would happily recommend it.
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Jimmy - View all reviews by this user
9 Overall rating
Food 9 | Service 9 | Atmosphere 8 | Value for money 9
Wednesday, February 17, 2010

This used to be an excellent two star Michelin restaurrant, it lost them when the Chef moved on in the summer of 2009, it lives on its past reputation but has made no effort to try and keep up the standards expected of it. The room remains beautiful, as is the bar and charming hotel but alas the restaurant is now a depressing affair, you are served by ok staff who are obviously unmotivated, the food is mean, boring and not anywhere near what is expected of this establishment, the set menu has a poor choice, all in all a rather dull place, shame... Hope they get their act together soon...
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- View all reviews by this user
2 Overall rating
Food 3 | Service 3 | Atmosphere 1 | Value for money 1
Sunday, January 31, 2010

The Capital used to be my absolute favourite London restaurant for years. Having tried probably most major Michelin star places in London over the past several years I always kept returning to The Capital for its "reference food"; simple or sophisticated, the food experience has always been top-class.

So, I returned to The Capital last week (January 2010) to celebrate my girl-friend's birthday. First impression; the menu looks boring. Initially I dismissed that impression -- come on, the menu can not be boring at The Capital!. Second impression; an appetizer from the Chef: a prawn soup with .. chorizo that left nothing in the mouth other than a taste of sausage. This made me a bit concerned. Third impression; starters -- a pan fried foie gras that (with no mention on the menu) turned out to be served with ... bacon (which unsurprisingly killed the taste of foie gras); and a 'terrine of duck, pork and foie gras' (that appeared to have just traces of foie gras and tasted like a plain pork pate). This made me nervous. Fourth impression; main courses -- lobster with spinach and baked dover sole with mushroom souce. Nothing particularly wrong with them, but you can get a higher level of excitement in places that have no single Michelin star and are a fraction of The Capital's price tag.

I shared my impressions with the service asking if they had a new Chef or some other disaster has happened. Then it all became clear; they indeed have a new Chef! (since November 2009) -- a small detail that I have missed (my fault), but one that seems to explain a lot. Since the departure of the previous Chef, The Capital is a different place; not the one I am eager to return to. I was told by the service that the new Chef's philosophy is to cook 'simple food'. Well, I have no problem with simple food (eg, I love a simple lobster soup with cognac or a simple fish in white wine souce ... or even fish and chips when cooked well). But that's not 'simple food' that explains my experience at "The (New) Capital" (in fact; the food was not simple; as it's actually got too many ingredients, in my view). The problem (at least as seen by my subjective and amateurish taste) is: boring food with extras that efficiently kill the taste of what you expect to enjoy. If having ordered foie gras and lobster you want to leave a restaurant with your mouth full of sausages and bacon, then The Capital is the place to go. Walking back home I was wondering when they will start losing their Michelin stars and regretting I didn't grab shish tauk from the neighbouring lebanese bistro.

(NB. My girl-friend had similar impressions, although she said she enjoyed her baked dover sole. As for the service, to be fair, they were nice and offered us a free dessert and a choice of one of the dishes from the degustation menu - I took dessert (prune tart souffle, which was quite nice), I didn't take more food).
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Rad
5 Overall rating
Food 4 | Service 6 | Atmosphere 7 | Value for money 1
Tuesday, January 12, 2010

I dined at the Capital on 19 December 2009 with my wife and sister-in-law. The food and service was good but I wonder about their Michelin stars.

Firstly, there was no vegetarian main dish on offer. We were told by the waiter that the chef could do pasta and mushrooms. At this level I feel a restaurant should offer a genuine vegetarian option, not simply knock something up without meat.

The main dishes were beautifully executed but quite small portions. Alas, there were no vegetable side dishes. Why not? I understand the menu is heavily influenced by Provencale style cuisine, but I can't imagine the good people of Provence paying around £100 per head but still feeling a little bit hungry by the end. My advice - assuming you are not an overweight businessman with a supermodel in tow - fill up on the bread when it is offered!
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7 Overall rating
Food 5 | Service 8 | Atmosphere 8 | Value for money 7
Tuesday, December 22, 2009

On 9 Dec 09 when we visited, we were told that new menu kicked in with the new chef starting, which in itself is not a problem - despite the Chef who earned it 2 Michelin stars leaving, if he is replaced by someone as good, or even more innovative and exciting, one can only look forward to see what it would be like. All one can say about the new chef experience is, that if the quality of food we witnessed and the menu served (coupled with absolutely appaling service, but more on that later) continues, then just watch those Mich stars disappear!

Disappointingly, despite booking weeks in advance, and dealing with the hotel/restaurant staff the week in question, and even confirming booking on the night, no mention whatsoever was made of new menu, or that the only choices that will be opened on the night would be a 5 course degustation or plain a la carte. No famed good valule 2 or 3 course fixed price a la carte advertised on the internet was available, and no apologies offered despite confirmation to the contrary on email a week before. We opted for a 5 course degustation, which was neither interesting, nor exciting and in places, simply awful. The best dish was a starter dish of porkbelly, truffle mash/cream/soup blob, and tiny langostine (although not sure how the latter actually fits into that picture at all as it was served on its own without any accompaniment or anything that would marry it into the rest of the dish of the porkbelly). Unfortunately, the aforementioned and rather good pork belly was a tiny cube of 3x4cm. Every dish, including the rather soft and well cooked roll of lamb was oversalted (and this is from someone who is rather fond of salt!) Grilled seabream served with minestrone soup type texture was ok, but not anything that one would expect from a great Michelin establishment. The "surprise dishes" as one of the waiters has put it, were useless and without any link to anything, desserts awful, with some sort of cream, icecream gelatto and (green) jelly creation, half melted, it looked terrible, did not excite the pallate leave alone imagination. The second dessert of some sort of cake and banana icecream was something that one would find in a HomeEconomics repertoire. Perhaps the best dessert option was the petit fours that came with our coffees...

Now to the service, Basil Fawlty would have looked an utter professional in comparison. By far the most appaling service I have witnessed for years! No dedicated waiter serving the table - we have counted that we had encountered at least 9 different people in one evening, many of whom have asked us the very same question that his/her predecessor has asked only minutes before. Champagne ordered never appeared, and had to be asked for twice, bread basket not refilled/offered through the degustation, water not refilled without asking (several times!).

The choices of the £55 pp accompanying wine menu to the £70 degustation was not only bad value for money but just plain bad. Not one interesting or exciting wine, and the Saint Emillion offered, probably something that I wouldnt make gluhwein with. That is when the degustation wine was actually poured with the dish that it was supposed to accompany (yes, we did have to ask!). To top it all off, the service was painfully slow (with staff running around all over the place, no enough of them, without dedicated functions, bumping into each other, it's no suprise), so with1930 dinner, last dish did not arrive till 2330, coffees after midnigh. Sad really, considering it's stellar reputation over the years with the previous chef.
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superfoodie - View all reviews by this user
3 Overall rating
Food 3 | Service 1 | Atmosphere 5 | Value for money 4
Tuesday, December 15, 2009