6 Hamilton Place

Just at the edge of Hyde Park is 6 Hamilton Place, a building originally built for the Fourth Earl of Buckinghamshire in the late 17^th century, and acquired in 1879 by Leopold de Rothschild. In modern times it was bought by movie actor John Mills in the 1950s, and in the late 1990s was converted to its present form. It is primarily a casino, but there is a restaurant in the basement (it used to be upstairs) that is open to anyone. The restaurant is an all day, seven day a week affair, catering mostly to the culinary desires of the gamblers. These clients are mostly from China and the Middle East, and so the restaurant serves Chinese food and Lebanese food. As well as the sixty-seat dining room there are private dining rooms for events. The Chinese head chef since early 2024 is Eric Chan, who previously cooked Cantonese food in Singapore. The front of house is managed by the experienced and suave hospitality director Christophe Thuilot, who I recall serving me at The Capital, Seven Park Place, Gordon Ramsay’s Aubergine and even The Restaurant Marco Pierre White. The a la carte menu is £75 per person for three courses, with a tasting menu at £89.

The wine list had 130 labels and ranged in price from £50 to £1,250 with a median price of £155 and an average markup to retail price of 2.98 times, which by Mayfair standards is very fair. Sample references were Château Langlet Blanc 2018 at £57 for a bottle that you can find in the high street for £18, Calera Central Coast Chardonnay 2014 at £85 compared to its retail price of £19, and Amarone Della Valpolicella Classico, Le Bertarole 2016 at £99 for a wine that will set you back £32 in the high street. For those with the means there was Marchesi Antinori Tignanello 2014 at £425 compared to its retail price of £178, and Dominus Estate Dominus 2014 at £650 for a wine whose current market value is £250. 

We began with salt and pepper prawns, which were lightly fried and carefully cooked (14/20) as well as salt and pepper squid, which were particularly tender and nicely judged (15/20). These were better than har gau whose prawns were fine but whose dumplings were a little thick compared to the best of the breed (13/20). Spring rolls had crisp batter and were filled with Chinese cabbage, Chinese mushroom, carrot and bamboo shoots (14/20). A lobster cake was an unusual dish that worked nicely, with the shellfish again being carefully cooked and tender (14/20). 

Steamed Chilean Sea bass with crisp soy beans and cabbage was served in bite sized pieces, the cabbage in particular being excellent, the fish itself cooked a touch longer than ideal (14/20). Diced fillet of beef with black pepper with oriental pepper sauce worked well, the mild flavour of the beef nicely lifted by the spices (14/20). Stir-fried mixed vegetables were cooked all right but were rather bland, and could have done with something more to lift their flavour (13/20). Spicy Malaysian prawns with fried rice had aromatic rice and carefully cooked, good quality prawns (14/20). Sichuan style Dover sole was spicy but the delicate flavour of the fish was rather overwhelmed by the Sichuan peppercorns (13/20). Better was spicy aubergine, where the spices in excellent balance and enlivened the aubergine very well indeed (15/20). Singapore noodles had good texture (14/20), as did the egg-fried rice.

We tried a solitary dessert, a cube of mango and passion fruit cheesecake that had reasonable texture and which certainly tasted of its advertised constituents (13/20). Service was excellent, being attentive and friendly with flawless wine topping up. The bill, albeit with some good Leflaive Meursault, came to £203 per person, but if you ordered more carefully than we did and shared a modest bottle of wine then a more typical cost per person might be around £120. 6 Hamilton Place is an unusual place given its home in a casino, but the Cantonese food here is very good, and the service is exceptional. You can eat a lot worse in Mayfair for much more money, at least provided you don’t gamble away the money you saved by avoiding a glitzier Mayfair restaurant.