Christopher's

The start you see here on Square meal is well deserved at Christopher, but only – these days – for one quality: the venue. It is walking distance from the Opera and most theatres around this part of town. For many years it delivered acceptable, if not great, north American fare and a very important function in having a nice and well run cocktail bar on the ground floor. This as we all know is still surpisingly difficult to find in Covent Garden. So, I was a regular. I probably visited Christophers a dozen times a year. However, since early 2011 all has not been well. The spirit seems to be lacking, the venue has very rapidly started showing its age and although the staff is grumpy, one almost feels sorry for them as there is a whiff of “poor management” in the air. So on a very recent – and probably last until somthing fundamental is changed – we had a drink in the sticky and worn out cocktail bar reading eye-popping prices from an euqally worn and falling apart cocktail list.

My previous enjoyement of Christopher makes me want to wish them well. The bulidng/venue has tremendous potential, so let's hope this is not the last chapter of the lovely site…

My huband and I went to Christophers on Saturday 27th September 2011 for my husband's birthday. Upon arrival we were rather impressed with the grand staircase. We were shown to our table, which was a window table overlooking Waterloo bridge, which was really nice. The service was excellent, but I'm afraid that's where it went downhill. I had foie gras with chicken liver parfait and my husband had scallops. My foie gras was OK nothing amazing but the chicken liver was very strong and not very nice at all but my husband did enjoy his scallops he said they were excellent. For my main course I had the seared tuna and my husband had New York Strip. my tuna was very good at all and they put wasabi puree on top which was awful and not even on the menu!!! My husband's steak was very tough and tasteless. I complained about my tuna and asked them to take it away, which they did. They offered to cook my husband fillet steak instead which they did but once again it was tough and tasteless and inedible. The staff were very accommodating and friendly but I would never return there again, as the food was under par and not enjoyable whatsoever.

Restaurants are pulling out their hair with meal deals and marketing and trying to maintain, or develop, a steady flow of custom. Location helps. Prices are important. Good service is helpful. Top quality produce and food cooked and served well is vital, the priority. All make a good restaurant and thus as clientele we are happy handing over our hard earned dollar. It’s the restaurant experience, which is far more important than just the food. If we’re to continue leaving the comfort of our sofas and leaving behind The X Factor to be recorded on Sky +, then it’s experience we seek. It’s the package.

I’ve had several visits to Christopher’s, The American Bar & Grill, in Covent Garden and many more late nights in the stylish Martini Bar downstairs. Breakfast Martini’s are wonderful, although disappointingly off the menu on my visit, and I settled for a starter of Lychee Martini (£7.50): Plymouth slow and dry gins with strawberry and lychee, was cool, fresh and delightful.

Built as a papier-mache factory in the first half of the nineteenth century, the current ornate facade was added in 1870, when the site became London’s first licensed casino. The stone spiral staircase sweeps around a corner and up to the dining area. You can imagine the glamorous drifting through, Bond is eyeing up archrivals, and wealthy drinkers and gamblers under twinkling lights, throwing chips into the small hours.

Christopher Gilmour opened Christopher’s in December 1991 to serve good quality steaks and lobster, hitherto unable to be found in London. Today you will find a vast menu: Special Offers, A La Carte, Brunch, Bar Food, Theatre Menu, Functions. Brunch is being promoted and marketed with posters and flip board outside. I was invited to dine and celebrate my birthday with Christopher’s so decided to take the family for Saturday brunch.

I phoned and booked ten days in advance. Told them I had received their letter and thanked them for the complimentary bottle of champagne they had offered me.

Brunch is served Saturdays and Sundays 11.30am – 3.30pm offering £17.50 for any two courses or £21.00 for any three courses. There is the light and healthy: figs & dates with Greek yoghurt & maple syrup, and grilled grapefruit & banana, muscovite sugar with spiced rum. Then there’s the substantial dishes: steak & eggs, grilled 10oz. rib-eye steak with two fried eggs & fries, and my choice, the Texas grill, bison sausage, maple cured bacon, corn fed chicken, grilled tomato and hash brown. A delightful sausage (a sentence I have never written before) and the very best grilled tomatoes. Truly.

And then, in true American fashion, and the reason breakfast was invented…pancakes! Indeed, there was: Blueberry buttermilk pancakes with blueberry compote & warm maple syrup, Buttermilk pancakes with maple cured bacon & warm maple syrup, Roast peach & French toast with warm maple syrup & mascarpone, Toasted bagel, cream cheese, smoked salmon, red onion & tomato. The most disgustingly delightful combination of sweets, and for anyone who’s visited the US institution of IHOP then you will know what I am talking about. Christopher’s, American Bar & Grill, is what IHOP would like to be. Its aspirations. Not accessible to the everyman.

Upon arrival and finishing my martini, we were taken upstairs, up the winding staircase and into the open and well-lit dining room. It’s very clean. Deep purple and burgundy walls, white linen and large Victorian windows overlooking The Lyceum Theatre (I saw The Lion King in 2004. Bhah!), and out across the bridge to the IMAX.

Seated behind a wall and out of view from all other diners and conversation, I had to ask to be moved. This seemed to cause much confusion, with two waiters having to confirm if this was possible. The dining room was half-full, so I could not understand why it wouldn’t be? Finally, we were taken inwards and to a table of much better geography. Why we weren’t placed there in the first place was beyond me. Throughout our meal we all felt as if we were being constantly discussed, as if out very presence had shaken the daily seating rota.

When the food arrived, we were again dissatisfied. All previous visits to Christopher’s have been favourable. My eggs Benedict, poached eggs, ham, hollandaise sauce and hash brown were good. Wonderful hash brown. I’d enjoyed an equally delicious eggs Benedict a few weeks previous at The Wolseley and it’s quick becoming my breakfast of choice. Maybe it’s the pretension it thrusts upon me. The healthy Anglo-Saxon poached egg and bacon delight. The indulgence. The mirroring of A.A. Gill, who wrote in his own appraisal, “Eggs Benedict is the star, the Marilyn Monroe, of brunch.”

I then ordered the Texas Grill. A perfect English breakfast in an American eatery. Bison sausage and top tomatoes. Oh yeah, minus the beans. WHERE WERE THE BEANS? Pa had the steak and eggs and was not impressed. I could see the quality of the meat was not very good and looked fatty. He did comment on its lardaceous texture and lack of flavouring. Ma ordered Maryland crab cake, red pepper mayo & hash browns. When it arrived, it looked small but delicate. Good reports on the crab cake.

I finished with buttermilk pancakes with maple cured bacon & warm maple syrup. I could have done without the bacon following my beefy, prehistoric feelings from the Texas Grill. Despite tummy tricks, the Lychee martini and two bottles of Fleurie Millesi, 2008 (£36.50 each), the pancakes stayed down. Scrumptious!

Further confusion reigned, and once again from the poor staff. When I asked for the promised birthday champagne, eyebrows were raised. I was then told that the champagne value had been taken off our overall spend on the two bottles of wine. Okay. I see. We had not asked for this but fair enough. Floating bubbles of French sweetness may have been a step too far at the end of our American brunch, but still, this is a decision for us to make. Don’t write to me and butter me up through personalised invitations, only to seat my family behind a wall in a half-filled dining room, make your own commotion, mishaps, and disoriented states so obvious to our table, and then make decisions contradicting your own letter and taking away the birthday gift of which was promised.

It’s difficult to write borderline on this experience. To be ambivalent and look beyond the discomforts. Other visits to Christopher’s have been rewarding, yet this was disappointing. The food was not the concern, there are delightful selections, if not some defective and slipshod, yet the service and our treatment was enough to ruin the experience. Perhaps I was seeking top treatment on my birthday, but consider the imperfections, and I release from such a venue with its reputation and prices, as diners we should all be rewarded despite the occasion, and even more so when you have been personally invited.