Hotel Chantelle

This restaurant has starters around the £18 mark and mains rising into the £30's and peaking at a steak to share at £100. The tables are comfortable yet there is a DJ which inevitably gets in the way of conversation. The place seems full of the kind of non entity celebrity types that show up in the Daily Mail or are on reality TV shows But then that is probably par for the course as the "Executive Chef" (really?) Seth Levine apparently is most recommended for his appearance in a US reality TV show. The service is reasonable but nobody really seems to be in charge of each table. Now to the food. I can honestly say that it was some of the most awful food that I have ever encountered at these kind of prices in London. Everything seems to be over engineered and just nothing worked. I had something called 'Pigs will Fly' - a whimsical name that promised expensive acorn fed Iberico ham and melon. This is of course not necessarily a good mix with Iberico ham, yet I was willing to try. The food - the ham - arrived clipped by plastic washing clips to a small washing line erected 8 inches above my plate hanging over thinly sliced melon on bread. The Iberico ham appeared not to be of any significant quality - I like my ham! To serve this kind of rubbish up at an expensive London restaurant is beyond an insult. The rest of my meal was the Nori Ash Monk (£29) - nori ash coated monkfish, pan seared, roasted fennel on the vine cherry tomatoes ginger & lemon grass veloutean. Or in normal parlance a dry overcooked fish in come kind of sauce that really had nothing to recommend it. By the way Chantelle, "Veloutean" is not a real word. My least foodie friend at the table - a "food is fuel" type - thought the meal was delicious. I rest my case. I give this restaurant 6 months to live at these prices.