Lost in space at Mirabelle

Mirabelle has one of the nicest dining rooms in London
10 April 2012

According to legend, Marco Pierre White once turned away 54 customers in a single night. This was back in the Eighties when he was at Harvey's and already well on his way to becoming Britain's first chef to win three Michelin stars.

Now that he's hung up his chef's whites and become a full-time restaurateur, he can't afford to be so picky. On the night I went to the Mirabelle, the flagship of Marco's White Star Line group, my companion and I were greeted by an apologetic maitre d' who told us we'd have the entire restaurant to ourselves.

'Oh dear,' I said, looking round the empty room. 'I don't want to keep the kitchen staff from going home.' 'Stay as long as you like,' said the maitre d'. 'We need the money.'

In fairness to the Mirabelle, it was quite late on a Monday night, and when I last visited almost a year ago it was half full. Still, it can't be a good sign.

It's particularly mysterious given that Curzon Street, where the Mirabelle's located, is home to so many financial services companies it's known as 'Hedge Fund Alley'.

You'd think this would be an ideal spot for one of London's most expensive - and glamorous - restaurants. If I were a hedge fund manager, I can think of few better places to spend my £10 million annual bonus.

When the Mirabelle first opened in 1936 it was an instant hit, attracting such illustrious customers as Winston Churchill, Vivien Leigh and Orson Welles, and rapidly establishing a reputation as London's answer to Maxim's, the famous Parisian restaurant. However, by the time Marco acquired it in 1998 its glory days were long past, and he ordered interior designer David Collins to give it a complete makeover.

The result is still one of the nicest dining rooms in London, with antique light fittings, parquet flooring and off-white wallpaper. Indeed, it has an air of such classic luxury you could almost be aboard a Twenties ocean liner.

The menu, like the restaurant itself, has a solid, timeless quality. On my last visit, I had an Arnold Bennett omelette and the rump of lamb - both excellent - and this time round I opted for Bayonne ham accompanied by a few shavings of black truffle and the daube of beef.

No complaints about the starter, but I have to confess that the provençale garnish that came with the beef had too many olives in it for my taste. My companion had more luck with his choices, starting with smoked salmon à la russe and following up with poulet noir, but he didn't make much of a dent in his lemon tart and my selection of French farmhouse cheeses was the biggest disappointment of the evening. Why no cheese trolley?

Halfway through the meal, two more customers appeared - an enormously fat, middle-aged Indian gentleman and a dazzlingly pretty Indian girl of about 18. I assumed it was a father taking his daughter out for dinner, but when his first course arrived, he started feeding it to her with a spoon in a way that suggested their relationship might not be purely platonic.

As we were leaving, we bumped into another group of customers, presumably having dined in one of the Mirabelle's private dining rooms. To my untrained eye, they looked like the cast of EastEnders, but I'd drunk the best part of a bottle of Crozes-Hermitage at that point so I could easily be wrong.

Is the Mirabelle still capable of attracting A-list celebrities? Yes, according to the tabloids, which reported that Russell Crowe got into a spot of bother at the restaurant two weeks ago when he sent back a £3,500 bottle of wine, claiming it was corked.

However, when I checked this story with the sommelier, he point-blank denied it. 'Completely made-up,' he said. My advice to him is just to tap his nose and wink the next time he's asked about this incident. As far as I can tell, the Mirabelle needs all the help it can get.

Mirabelle
56 Curzon Street, W1J 8PA

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