The Capital

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
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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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
Overall rating
Food 3 | Service 1 | Atmosphere 5 | Value for money 4
Tuesday, December 15, 2009

Brilliant opportunity to visit 3 restaurants all of which were Michelin star restaurants over the past week: The Capital Restaurant = Brilliant, Hibiscus Restaurant = good, Auberge du Lac = OK. The following report is based on "The Capital Restaurant". If you can imagine entering heaven and having the best meal ever then you would have to go to The Capital Restaurant. The tasting menu is an artistic master piece combined with the highest quality ingredients that I have ever experiences so far. All dishes were amazing, but I would like to point out some of these. The Foie gras / fig combination was perfect - the Foie gras was rich and creamy and the cranberry sticks were so tasty overall making a magical combination. The fillet of lamb - what can I say, it was like eating butter - I am not a lamb fan and actually do not eat it, but I made an exception and I am glad that I did the lamb was brilliantly cooked and tasted excellent. Ok, skipping a few dishes as I do not want to spoil your surprise we come on to the desert - WOW - AMAZING - apple froth, lemon grass .... plus a few others [secret :P] produced an imaginative and intelligent combination of ingredients producing an explosion of flavours – wonderful, words cannot describe just how yummy this dish was - a brilliant end to the meal. Overall the quantity, flavour & richness were a perfect combination - we cannot wait to see how well the Fat Duck does against The Capital Restaurant but you will have to wait 3 months as we could not get a sitting :(
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Mark Day
Overall rating
Food 10 | Service 10 | Atmosphere 10 | Value for money 10
Monday, October 26, 2009

Loved it - great menu and wonderful food. Service was really friendly and attentive. Lots of extras too - and an absolute bargain. Want to go back soon. If I had one critisism is that the restaurant itself is a liitle small so loses something in terms of atmosphere but that is me being a little harsh
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TF
Overall rating
Food 9 | Service 8 | Atmosphere 6 | Value for money 10
Saturday, October 10, 2009

My husband took me to the Capital last night for my birthday to try something new. The two of us love good food and have been to a number of michelin star restaurants in the UK and France.

The service is fine, a bit slow, but they have this remarkably desperate need to get rid of their bread. They must have asked us 3 times per waiter (4 of them) whether we would like more bread. We said no each time. The bread and butter tasted like they've been stored somewhere for some time and have acquired the flavour of the storage cabinet.

We had the degustation menu for both food and wine. The food was definitely not Michelin star quality. We were utterly disappointed. I was very surprised by the pre-starter, which is a little Thai crab cake (they called it something a bit different, can't remember) with thick coconut soup (?) that clashed with the crab cake. The foie gras with cranberry sauce was odd as well. Foie gras was fine (not outstanding), but the cranberry sauce was so sour my face twisted into that of a 90 year old. Scallop was good. The John Dory for main course was horrible. There were so many flavours on the plate yet they all managed to clash. The fish was overcooked as well. They didn't pick a good cut of lamb, which was somewhat chewy and challenging to my not very aged teeth (I am mid 30s). My husband liked the dessert, I didn't.

We are not big wine people (in terms of knowledge, not volume), so not much we can say. Of the 5 wines we had, only one can be rated highly from our perspective.

For £150 per head, I'm definitely not coming back. If it's £40, maybe.
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CC
Overall rating
Food 3 | Service 6 | Atmosphere 9 | Value for money 1
Sunday, July 19, 2009

My first visit for maybe fifteen years, and certainly no disappointments at lunch yesterday. Each of the six courses we tried between us was nicely flavoured, well-presented and cooked just right, and at £29.50 for three courses its certainly not overpriced.

Overall I'd say that the food may lack a little of the creative spark and intensity that you might expect at say Royal Hospital Road or even Tom Aikens, but the food is excellent.

I wish I could be as complementary about the values in the wine list as I have been about the food, but the entire list seems to me to be extremely expensive and poor value. For example the least expensive glass of red I could find was £10.50. I've downrated the vfm score because of this- for food alone it would rate more highly, but they badly need a selection of decent wines in the £20 -£30 range, and explain to the wine buyer that there's no point offering a great value lunch deal if you don't cater for a compatible budget on wines.

The atmospherics are sober and bland- the usual blond woods and plenty of glass. A bit short of character really, but improved as the place filled up.
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David Henderson
Overall rating
Food 8 | Service 8 | Atmosphere 6 | Value for money 7
Friday, August 22, 2008

My wife and I visit London at least annually and enjoy trying wonderful restaurants. Over the past 15 years, we have dined at The Capital four times, and returned again last week. While we appear to be in the minority, we were terribly dissappointed. The decor has been changed since our last visit and is not the lovely classical setting that we used to enjoy. It was also surprising that on a Saturday evening. many guests wore jeans, and only two of us wore jacket and tie. I may be old fashioed, but it just seems appropriate to dress a little for a two star Michelin restaurant. That said, I did not feel as though I dined in a two star restaurant. I had the lamb, which was served as three small medallions, two of which were so fatty that I could not cut or eat them. My wife had the same and her meat was fine. When the waiter removed the plate she must have noticed the uneatten chunks of fatty mass, but said nothing, nor did she ask if we enjoyed our meals. Contrary to another review concerning the sommelier, we ordered a wine at 85 GBP over which the sommelier seemed to sneer. The wine was not decanted and was poured heavily to avoid the need for return trips. This was a sad contrast to the prior visits which were so memorable.
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Stuart Finestone
Overall rating
Food 6 | Service 6 | Atmosphere 7 | Value for money 5
Monday, November 26, 2007

We were thinking about spending Christmas Eve at The Capital and so went to have lunch there to try it out. What a gastronomic experience! The food was delicious and the presentation outstanding. The service was attentive and professional without being overbearing. The wine recommended by the sommelier was a real find and at £69 for the bottle, really reasonable considering the quality. We so enjoyed our experience that we have booked and confirmed for Christmas Eve.
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Kelly
Overall rating
Food 10 | Service 10 | Atmosphere 10 | Value for money 10
Sunday, October 14, 2007

I would echo the sentiments of some of the other reviewers here: The food and service are truly excellent; just what you would expect from a two-star establishment. At under £30, lunch has to be one of the best deals in London.

As mentioned by other reviewers, the wine list is very steeply priced, with some pretty outrageous markups (even by London restaurant standards). There is, however, a good selection of wines by the glass which probably represent better value for money.

The decor in the dining room itself is hard to describe - quite conservative, it's a bit 'civic-centre' circa 1985. It can also be very quiet if there aren't many other customers, making your normal level conversation feel boomingly loud. This doesn't detract, though, from what is a great eating experience - well worth a try in my opinion.
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Overall rating
Food 9 | Service 9 | Atmosphere 6 | Value for money 7
Sunday, September 30, 2007