There was a knack to securing a reservation at Le Caprice in its heyday. You simply set your alarm clock for 9am three months ahead of time, dialled the restaurant’s landline, and spent the entire day, ear glued to the receiver, hitting redial on repeat. Worked like a charm every time! It may be that the restaurant’s regulars Princess Diana and Madonna had more efficient methods but whatever; my way worked fine for us normies.
Three, no, four decades later, some things have changed, some things have stayed the same. The restaurant’s changed names – it’s now simply Arlington; it’s changed owners – Jeremy King has bought it back; and it is now somewhat easier to get in, thanks to advances in digital technology (making a reservation is now the work of a minute on Sevenrooms, but you should probably still do it three months in advance).
In most other regards, all is soothingly, reassuringly, as it was. The mirrored monochrome interior looks timeless; the David Bailey prints are back on the walls; the salmon fishcakes are back on the menu; and the ladies who lunch are back in force. In this cosseted corner of St James’s, we find a protected world where gentlemen have pocket squares, ladies wear Chanel, and waiters take orders with paper and pen.
Mindful that nostalgia might dull my critical faculties, I persuade my teenage daughter to join me for lunch. She can always be relied on for a sneer and an eyeroll. In fact, the menu easily passes the teenager test. Haddock and chips, chicken Milanese, bang bang chicken, and tortellini are easy wins, while hokey pokey ice cream for pudding is a given. Turns out, I’m the difficult one. There’s nothing I really fancy among the ‘80s and ‘90s Caprice classics. Even the updated weekly specials such as king prawns and tomato salsa, and halibut with asparagus and sauce vierge, read ‘dinner party’. So, slightly sulkily, I order a chopped salad for vitamin C, steak tartare for my iron levels, figuring I might as well get something out of a dull lunch.
Restaurant Review
What do I know? As soon as my chopped salad arrives, I gasp with delight. It’s so pretty! I probably have all the ingredients in the crisper drawer at home – gem lettuce, tomatoes, celery, avocado – but I’d never cut them so precisely nor dress them so assertively. It’s an excellent salad. Steak tartare too is comme il faut, and the fries are perfection: skinny, salty, crispy. I try, for the first time (I must confess) the famous iced Scandinavian berries with white chocolate, invented by Mark Hix and now synonymous with both Le Caprice and The Ivy. What a creation! I feel silly for never having tried it before.
“You could bring your grouchiest uncle, your trickiest client, your fussiest niece, or sulkiest teenager, and watch as their bad mood evaporates. This spoiled brat stands corrected.”
I get a taster of the fish and chips before the teenager polishes them off (a matter of seconds). I can happily report that they are what I, or indeed a tourist, would recognise as ‘proper’ fish and chips. The peas may be delicately crushed and minted, not mushy, but the chips are hand cut and chunky, the batter is crisp and golden, and the only other departure from chip shop tradition is a muslin-wrapped lemon. The hokey pokey ice cream, with dark, deeply caramelised chunks of honeycomb and dark chocolate sauce gets full marks.
Le Caprice worked then, and Arlington works now, because King knows his SW1 audience. They didn’t want fussy 1980s haute cuisine then any more than they want fussy 2020s fine-dining now. He’s providing comforting, uncomplicated cooking at common sense prices (our bill was little over £120) in a pleasant environment where anybody can feel at home. You could bring your grouchiest uncle, your trickiest client, your fussiest niece, or sulkiest teenager, and watch as their bad mood evaporates. This spoiled brat stands corrected.
