Let’s get the obvious out of the way: this is not a place for a casual post-work bite. At £250 for a 15-course dinner, Row on 5 demands a certain commitment, but what you get is a dining experience so choreographed, so lavishly upholstered, it makes most of Mayfair look like Wetherspoons. This is fine dining tailored to a modern crowd: a 15-course odyssey set against classic 80s rock anthems and stitched through with infectious sincerity.
It's an adaptation of sorts, riffing on Row on 45’s star-magnet success in Dubai, complete with a complimentary dry cleaning service, a petit four trolley fashioned as a set of drawers, and chopsticks engraved with your name. There’s also a swaggering 4,500-strong wine cellar, plus a collection of Romanée-Conti displayed on silver hands modelled after Jason Atherton and Spencer Metzger’s own.
Downstairs, sommelier Roxane Dupuy guides us through her terrain, highlighting a 1928 Veuve Clicquot among other rarities. Champagne selected, we settle amidst velvet-heavy furnishings, watching the open kitchen at work.
The opener is an ‘Oyster and Pearl’ - a delicate nori macaron topped with hybrid N25 caviar and an oyster bavarois sphere - followed by a three-way ode to Andalusian tuna crowned with a clever nest of dried kombu. Both are spectacular, as is a crisp triple-decker 50-month Lincolnshire Poacher number capped with a lingering truffle onion gel.
Whisked upstairs and greeted in unison by a battalion of chefs, we’re quickly settled at a table with wax-sealed menus. Service is a spectacle in itself: all smiles, synchronised plate placement, with the sort of anticipatory attentiveness that makes you wonder if they’ve bugged your inner monologue. We’ve even got carved wood placemats for our phones - just another indication of Row on 5’s outrageous, sometimes gratuitous, penchant for excess.
The saga continues as peas picked in the dark for their sweetness join brown butter turbot in a hazelnut beurre monte. This is maximalist precision - each element contributes to the overall design - no clutter, no overwhelm. Case in point: just-poached langoustine served with an amela tomato dashi jelly comes matched with a confoundingly powerful duck egg sabayon, cut with bitter-sour finger lime and warmed with a toasty lick of curry leaf oil.
In short, Row on 5 is a dazzling, occasionally bonkers, and thoroughly memorable performance of what Atherton and Metzger can do. They’re showing off, and it suits them well.