Row On 5

This restaurant opened in late 2024, the new home of talented chef Spencer Metzger, as part of the Jason Atherton restaurant empire. The name Row on 5 refers to “refinement of work” and the address at 5 Savile Row. Spencer Metzger was head chef at The Ritz before moving to Dubai to open Row on 45, which won two Michelin stars within six months of it opening. When Spencer entered the TV competition Great British Menu he swept all competition aside with a series of perfect scores. I spoke to one of the chefs who had cooked against him, who told me that it was “as if Spencer had come down from another planet to teach us all how to cook”.

The format is a tasting menu stretching across fifteen dishes, priced at £198.50 (increasing to £250 from February 2025). A vegetarian version is available at the same price. The meal begins downstairs with a series of canapes before moving upstairs to the main dining room, and back again downstairs for the petit fours. No expense has been spared on the fit out of the restaurant, with very smart décor including an impressive series of wine cabinets that are visible from the dining room, with a private dining room tucked away within the wine cellar. Music plays in the dining room, but the carpeting means that noise levels are tolerable. There are just 28 covers here at the moment with 11 chefs working in the kitchen, and more waiting staff than you can shake a stick at.

The vast wine list had 1,566 different labels and ranged in price from £39 to £16,000, with a median price of £238 and an average markup to retail price of a hefty 3.5 times, high even by the demanding standards of central London. The list stretches over 227 pages and arrives in a vast, nicely bound book. Sample references were Domaine Gaujal Picpoul de Pinet 2023 at £56 for a bottle that you can find in the high street for £14, Mount Pleasant “Elizabeth Cellar” Hunter Valley Semillion 2016 at £69 compared to its retail price of £27, and Balgera Valgella Valtellina Superiore 2015 at £91 for a wine that will set you back £24 in the high street. For those with the means there was Marchesi Antinori “Tignanello” 2005 at £639 compared to its retail price of £234, and Château Beaucastel “Roussanne, Vieilles Vignes” Châteauneuf-du-Pape 2020 at £589 for a wine whose current market value is £164. The list covers the world of wine. Although 54% of the list is from France and 13% from Italy, there is coverage of wine producers from as far afield as Serbia, Ukraine, China, Japan and Turkey. There were just nine wines priced under £50 though 71 offerings under £75. By contrast there were 176 wines priced over £1,000, to give an indication of the primary target demographic. Some individual markups were very high, and I found six wines at more than ten times their retail price. On the positive side, I found 31 wines below their current market value, mostly at the pricy end of the list.

The meal began with a sequence of canapes. A take on the Spanish dish ajo blanco or white gazpacho featured a sphere of Marcona almond and grape ajo blanco glazed in roasted almond, topped with a layer of high quality N25 Kaluga caviar and completed by a bed of cucumber jelly and an almond macaroon. This had the natural sweetness from the almonds contrasting with the salinity of the caviar and was a subtle and skillful dish.My favourite canape was a series of different cuts of raw Cornish bluefin tuna. The tuna was served in a tartlet made from a stock from the roasted bones, spread, dried, fried and baked until crisp. At the bottom was caramelised cream, the lean tuna loin (akami) dressed in the condiment yuzu kosho made in house from fermented yuzu peel, chilli peppers and salt. Otoro, the fatty belly cut of the tuna, was dressed in yuzu ponzu and fresh wasabi from Shizuoka. The dish was garnished with crisp white kombu (dried kelp) from Hokkaido, chrysanthemum flowers and myoga (Japanese ginger). The overall effect brought a gentle touch of spice that went really well with the rich flavour of the silky slivers of tuna flesh. A take on a cheese and onion sandwich featured crisp layers containing 50-month aged Lincolnshire Poacher cheese from Alford and a home-made version of HP sauce. The onion crisps were made by slowly cooking onions for twelve hours and mixing with sourdough bread, then baking until crisp. The final elements were onion jam made from Roscoff onions cooked in soy and red wine vinegar, pickled walnut puree and lemon thyme. This was excellent, the crisps delicate and the strongly flavoured cheese nicely enhanced by the savoury tang of the sauce. Langoustine tempura used langoustine claws frozen at -80C, removed from the shell and fried. They were seasoned with espelette pepper and Amela tomato from Granada, served with a galangal and langoustine emulsion on the side. This was the least good canape. Much as I love langoustine, the batter was just not as delicate as the tempura batter than you encounter in Japan, though the emulsion on the side was good (17/20 average for the canapes).

Much better was the next dish, another take on langoustine. Scottish Langoustine came with a jelly made from Amela tomato that had been ripened and juiced. It was seasoned with smoked vinegar and calamansi zest. The langoustine was blanched for a few seconds and removed from the shell and then brushed in smoked vinegar, garnished with. calamansi (Philippine lime) gel, potato crisps and shiso flowers. There were two sauces, one a salted duck egg sabayon flavoured with aji Amarillo and fried curry leaf. The other was curry leaf oil and finger lime from Kochi in India. This was a glorious dish, the langoustine superbly sweet and with just a touch of acidity from the calamansi to balance. The sauces added a clever contrast of salinity and acidity (19/20).

Another top-notch dish was an Orkney hand-dived XL sized scallop, roasted and topped with an XO sauce made from the scallop skirts and roes, enlivened by a kanzuri chilli paste, essentially a milder version of yuzu koshō. This was Topped with Yarra Valley farm ikura salmon roe washed in yuzu sake and kobosu (a Japanese citrus) zest. The scallop rested in a beurre blanc sauce made from Dassai 39 premium sake, chives, smoked pike roe and confit kobosu zest, finished with kinome (sansho pepper leaf). This was a lovely dish, the scallop of very high quality, its natural sweetness nicely contrasted with the richness of the beurre blanc and the touch of acidity from the zest (easily 18/20).

This was followed by a dish of potato and N25 reserve golden oscietra caviar was next. Golden Lincolnshire potato was cooked in beurre noisette with a pomme puree using Bordier butter and cream creme cru from Normandy. The contrast of the humble potato and the luxury of the caviar and richness of the butter worked well (17/20).A laminated brioche was glazed in fermented Nook Farm honey from the Lake District, quince vinegar roasted chicken skin and yeast butter, with cep jam, lemon thyme and crisp chicken skin. It was certainly good, but for me the texture was just a little denser than the ideal (15/20).

Turbot from a large 8kg specimen was supplied by Flying Fish and aged for five days. The fillet was steamed gently, brushed in brown butter and Amalfi lemon juice. It was served with a sauce albufera (a classic French sauce itself based on a supreme sauce, itself based on a veloute) made using monkfish liver that had been cured like foie gras and cooked as a torchon and emulsified into the sauce made from the bones, peeled grapes, fermented kohlrabi, Scottish razor clams and finished with lovage oil. The fish was very carefully cooked (it is an easy fish to slightly overcook) and the sauce had depth and creamy richness, but without the liver flavour coming through at all strongly (18/20).

Sika deer from Dorset and aged for ten days came with crapaudine beetroot, a heritage variety grown mostly in France and having an elongated appearance and having particularly fine, deep flavour. The venison was cooked over juniper and pine and seasoned with Madagascan pepper, served with crapaudine beetroot and blackcurrant puree. This rested in a sauce grand veneur (huntsman’s sauce), made from a venison stock made with the bones along with red wine and port, juniper and Sarawak peppercorn. The sauce was finished with bone marrow that was brined, poached and smoked, dehydrated and combined with lightly pickled blackcurrant, Arima sansho peppercorns and shitake mushrooms braised in barrel aged soy sauce. The meat was cooked carefully and had plenty of flavour, with the haunch of venison appearing on the side, braised for 48 hours and bound together with the braising liquid reduced down with char sui sauce, served in taro buns that were deep-fried. The fried haunch was particularly lovely, and the sauce with the side of venison was rich and deeply flavoured (17/20).

In place of a cheeseboard was a little tartlet of Colson Basset Stilton. This worked really well, the tart case made from oats and being extremely delicate. It was filled with Stilton custard baked in the oven with white chocolate and apple cider gel. The strong flavour of the blue cheese came through well and worked nicely with the oat base. This was an original and successful alternative to a cheese course (18/20). 

Pre-dessert was a light fruit ice. This was based on citrus fruit from Baches Citrus, a specialist producer near Perpignon run by Bénédicte & Michel Bachès. A curd was made from the zest and juice of Baches farm citrus - buddah hand, calamansi, sudachi and yuzu, along with a Sauternes jelly, sudachi ice cream, finger lime and Provençal olive oil. To complete the dish kakigori style shaved ice flavoured with bergamot, lemon and kafir line leaf, with fresh kaffir lime zest on top. This was light and refreshing, as a pre-dessert should be (16/20).

The main dessert used 70% cacao Mayan Red chocolate sphere and 49% chocolate for a mousse. Miso caramel used white miso, grue briselet, salted hazelnut and artichoke ice cream, coffee and Baileys sabayon, with caramel fudge at the bottom. This was rich and enjoyable (16/20). The final element of the meal was “tea and cake” and involved financiers made from Okinawa sugar and hazelnut, milk oolong tea cream, Earl Grey tea cream, Nica Brown 71% Nicaraguan chocolate tart, smoked olive oil, sea salt and a tempered disk of chocolate allowed to melt over the top. Petit fours were a toasted hay caramel tart, matcha motchi tart, apple cider and black cardamon pate de fruit, blackcurrant and Népalise Timut pepper, lemon thyme pate de fruit, Singleton chocolate bonbon, an ‘After Eight’ bonbon and a coffee caramel and cobnut praline bonbon.  

Coffee was from Nespresso, albeit their premium blend, but this is essentially still an industrial grade coffee. A blend of Brazil and Colombian coffee was priced at £10 so it is not as if they could not afford to use a specialty roaster, of which London is blessed with in large numbers. This is an area that could be improved trivially just by changing to a better-quality supplier, which to their credit they are, I gather, just in the process of doing. A menu of teas was £10 for English breakfast up to £18 for Oolong. 

Service was impeccable, with lots of well-trained and helpful staff. There is even a valet cleaning service available for your coats, a nod to the Savile Row location. The head sommelier Roxanne (formerly at Sketch) was enthusiastic and knowledgeable. The desserts were the area of the meal that felt to me had greatest scope for improvement, along with the brioche, though these were certainly already very good. The bill for the meal came to £405 per person, with plenty of wine to drink. If you instead shared a modest bottle from the list then the bill might come to around £280 or so per person. Of course, this is not cheap, but then you do get a very complete dining experience here, with charming service in a lovely setting, and above all being cooked for by a genuinely high-class chef. I expect that Row on 5 will be a roaring success. Only a few weeks in operation, it is already outperforming most of London’s multi-starred restaurants.