The Commonwealth Club

I ate here last week as a new member and was delighted with the food and the service. Highly recommend. The only downside was - it was very brightly lit so adds nothing to the ambience.
Comment on this reader review

Deborah
Overall rating
Food 10 | Service 10 | Atmosphere 2 | Value for money 10
Saturday, November 17, 2007

We often go here for work 'do's and they are never very exciting. A staid venue with uninspiring decor and food to match. Their obsession with giving goats cheese to vegetarians never fails to astound me, and their lack of standardisation about what constitutes a decent helping means that some around the table are rolling around stuffed while others look distinctly famished at the end of their three courses. I literally beg not to have to go here. And I'm not even paying...!
View/Add comments (1)

Overall rating
Food 3 | Service 4 | Atmosphere 1 | Value for money 1
Wednesday, September 05, 2007

My wife and I have been members of the Commonwealth Club (CC), the club of the Royal Commonwealth Society, since it was a echoing and aged home-from-home for colonial bishops next to Embankment Underground. Then the Society ran into financial problems and ended up selling up most of its Northumberland Avenue site and leasing out a (relatively) small part of the premises for club members, the rest now being run as a Citadines hotel. As it turned out, that was the best thing that could have happened.

The new CC opened a few years ago in brilliantly designed (think all white) premises with exemplary contemporary architecture - the only suspended glass private dining room in London hovers above the main restaurant. I won't describe it further - you can look at the club, the menu and the wine list at http://www.rcsint.org/club/

Suffice it to say that the new CC has been so successful the club has recently taken over the old Barclays Bank building next door and last month opened the new areas, doubling its size. Of course, it's not just a restaurant - there are meeting rooms, a member's lounge, conference facilities and many Commonwealth functions are held there - but here I'm talking about the CC restaurant.

The food - well, to start with, you have to be a member or a member's guest to eat there. And we must express an interest: as long-time members - we would recommend it, wouldn't we? Well, not necessarily - we've always been pretty critical members, not least because my wife was once a professional cook and taught blue ribbon classes.

But the food is of the highest quality. The chef, Mark Page, won the competition for London club chef of the year a couple of years ago, as later did his deputy as 2-in-C, now moved on to a head chef position. Mark's menus are inventive (sometimes amazingly so) and always with a Commonwealth dish of the week - and the menu changes weekly.

The downside is that sometimes (though rarely) his inventiveness outstretches itself, so a dish just doesn't work as well as he would have hoped. But very, very rarely - and wouldn't you rather eat somewhere you might often have a fantastic experience rather than be usually served something safe but really rather sameish? To give you an idea, their website shows this week's menu at http://www.rcsint.org/club/?subSection=menu

Just think about some of those. And the 2-course menu is £16.50 - for a fine dining-room just off Trafalgar Square!

In addition the wine list is also excellent; you can have a look at it at

http://www.rcsint.org/club/?subSection=wine

The wine is chose by the maitre d', Hans Schraeder, who manages a very effective team, while the club manager, Sean Whitehouse, is usually flitting around.

In case you think this is a puff for the club, let me say that it will do you no good at all unless you're a member or can blag your way in as a guest. But for members it's the best bargain in central London - amazing food and wine at incredibly cheap prices for London, with a full range of club facilities to boot.

When I was working for the civil service it was where I took all my overseas guests, and they were always gobsmacked. Now I'm retired, it's where my wife and I go for some of the best cooking (and wine) in London. And the CC membership is (by London clubland standards) an absolute steal.....
Comment on this reader review

John N L Morrison
Overall rating
Food 10 | Service 10 | Atmosphere 10 | Value for money 10
Wednesday, March 01, 2006