Try world's most expensive restaurant... for £90: top chef behind £1,200-a-head Ibiza venue opens pop-up in London

The two Michelin starred chefs behind £1,200-a-head Sublimotion in Ibiza open a four-week pop-up at Café Royal
“Simply stunning”: the Standard’s Michael Howie and his wife Vanya get a sneak preview at the Café Royal (Picture: Nigel Howard)

The two Michelin starred chef behind the world’s most expensive restaurant is bringing his Spanish avant-garde food to London — at a fraction of the cost.

Paco Roncero opened his £1,200-a-head “theatrical dining” destination Sublimotion on Ibiza last year. Now he has created a tasting menu for a four-week pop-up at Café Royal, costing a relatively affordable £90.

The restaurant opens tonight at the hotel’s Domino Room, where Oscar Wilde dined with his lover Lord Alfred Douglas. Dishes on the menu, served until April 11, include foie gras and cardamom, tuna tartare, and squid risotto and curry oils.

Mr Roncero told the Standard: “The concept is Spanish, the philosophy is Spanish, 100 per cent of the ingredients are Spanish.”

But the London outpost will not feature the projections and mind tricks of his Balearic restaurant at the Hard Rock Hotel, which he has described as “the cheapest life-changing experience anyone can have”. Sublimotion serves only 12 diners a night, with 27 staff laying on a bizarre gastronomical show that includes self-mixing Bloody Marys and levitating food in an all-white room. Light and laser effects accompany each of the 20 dishes.

He will be bringing only some of his trademark techniques to London, including liquid nitrogen baths — used to create a frozen chocolate mousse so brittle that it smashes like glass under pressure from a spoon.

Another course, called Mango Egg, includes gelled mango puree and yoghurt, which is made to look like fried egg on toast.

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The Café Royal’s executive chef Andrew Turner said Mr Roncero was among the first of the current wave of cutting-edge Spanish chefs who wanted to showcase their work in London.

Mr Turner, who spent five days in Mr Roncero’s Madrid flagship La Terraza del Casino, said: “He loves the diversity and pace of London, they don’t have that diversity of culture in Spain.

“We are going out at a price point that is going to attract young trendy people to come into the Café Royal and experience a two Michelin star chef. I didn’t want it to be … £150 or more.”

It is the first in a series of collaborations between Mr Turner and guest culinary stars, as part of a project called The Domino Effect.

The next partners will be the pop-up “dining experience” Pret A Diner.

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