The Clermont Restaurant and Bar

The Clermont Hotel is adjacent to Charing Cross station and has a restaurant on the first floor. It is quite a grand building, built in 1865, with a sweeping staircase at its centre. The dining room is very smart, with a separate section at one end with tiled floor and windows looking out over Trafalgar Square. The menu offered a quite safe set of choices, from burgers and steaks to prawn cocktail and fish and chips. The kitchen has for ten years been run by Amit Kothavade, originally from Mumbai.

There was a short wine list of 28 labels that ranged in price from £32 to £190, with a median price of £43 and an average markup to retail price of 3.3 times, which is normal these days for central London. Sample references were Cave de l'Ormarine Picpoul de Pinet at £37 for a bottle that you can find in the high street for £11, Cadus Tupungato Malbec at £49 compared to its retail price of £17, and Domaine de la Motte Vau-Ligneau Chablis at £66 for a wine that will set you back £29 in the high street. For those with the means there was Domaine Chante Cigale Chateauneuf du Pape at £60 compared to its retail price of £35, and Le Clos Lanson at £190 for a wine whose current market value is maybe £205 depending on which vintage it actually was. This was a very lazy wine list and the omission of vintages is due to what? Lack of paper and a writey thing? Sorry but what kind of sommelier writes out “Lanson Le Vintage” and then leaves the vintage blank? This is not some tiny independent restaurant; it is a central London hotel. Do better.

This is not a fine dining restaurant so there were no canapés or petit fours, or even bread on the side. My starter of salt pepper squid (£10) was one of the most exotic dishes on the menu, and it was decent enough, the squid reasonably tender and the batter surrounding it reasonable, though this could have been crisper. What was a little odd was the size of it, with just a handful of small pieces along with a slice of lemon. I mean it was a starter, but only just (11/20). A “modern prawn cocktail” (£10) contained smoked salmon, avocado and prawns. This was rather lacklustre, the smoked salmon not comparing well to really good examples like the one at Parlour or indeed to good suppliers like Goldstein in London. The avocado was ripe but the prawns tasted quite cheap, with little flavour or natural sweetness. Even the dressing lacked much flavour, though at least the toast in the side was served warm (11/20 is kind).

For the main course, sea bass (£26) garnished with peas shoots had nice flavour but was a bit overcooked in the frying process. It also had rather a lot of olive oil, so when the dish was finished the plate was pretty much covered in a film of oil. The Nicoise style vegetables with it were reasonable, there being green beans, cherry tomatoes, olives, good quality anchovies, red peppers and little roast potatoes. This was a step up from the starters at least (12/20). Fish and chips (£19) were reasonable, the batter fairly crisp and not greasy, the fish cooked properly within. This came with decent mushy peas and tartare sauce. The triple cooked chips with it were presumably bought in but were fine (12/20).

For dessert apple tarte tatin (£9) with toffee sauce used Braeburn apples, and these worked quite well. For me the apples needed more caramelisation to get to the golden colour that an ideal tarte tatin should be, and the salted caramel ice cream served with it was not of the highest quality. Nonetheless this was a decent tarte tatin (13/20). A cheesecake (£9) served to my dining companion had reasonable taste and texture (12/20). Coffee was from Nespresso capsules (£4 a cup with no petit fours, so a profitable affair). 

Service was fairly basic. For example, when we entered the room there were very few guests yet no one was there to greet us, so we just wandered around the dining room until we spotted the friends that we were meeting. During the meal it was not easy to get the attention of the waiting staff, despite it being fairly quiet at this lunch service. The staff that we encountered were perfectly pleasant, but this did not feel like a well-oiled service machine. The bill came to £71 per person just with a glass or two of wine each. Overall the Clermont restaurant is a harmless enough place, with a very grand dining room that I could imagine being given an upgrade on the culinary front.