Two weeks ago I had the great pleasure of spending an evening in the company of two of my favourite food bloggers: Johanna and Pille. Our dinner booking was only for 20h30, which is probably a good thing as this gave Pille and me a chance to spend an hour or so enthusing about our shared recent discovery of the joys of skiing. So we strolled down to the Thames and had a drink on The Yacht, one of the many vessels moored along the Embankment that operate as bars. Wonderful view of the London skyline, great company and unlimited ski talk – does life get any better??
But the evening could not all be about skiing and at the appointed hour we presented ourselves at Galvin Bistrot de Luxe in Baker Street. Galvin is the brainchild of brothers Chris and Jeff Galvin. Chris got his start in culinary life when, as a teenage pot-washer in a the Old Log restaurant in Brentwood he encountered sous chef Anthony Worrall-Thompson and was entranced. Catering college followed (for both brothers) and then an apprenticeship in some of London’s best restaurants. Chris’s impressive CV includes stints at The Ritz, Worrall’s Menage a Trois (New York), L’Escargot, The Lanesborough Hotel, Orrery and The Wolsley. Jeff’s includes The Savoy Hotel, The Capital Hotel, Chez Nico, The Greenhouse and The Oak Room. The brothers also worked together at Orrery and L’Escargot, but in 2005 they decided to step off the Michelin-star treadmill and open their own restaurant – in the French bistro style. (For those wishing to sample the brothers’ more formal offerings, they also run Galvin at Windows at the Park Lane Hilton where the views are spectacular and the cuisine is modern French).
I must say that my first impression was one of mild chaos – there was some kerfuffle at the door with a queue snaking almost onto the pavement. It was hard to tell whether the people ahead were coming or going – some seemed to be perusing menus which seemed to suggest we could ease past them and join Johanna at the table, but others were waiting for coats stored in a cupboard which opened outwards into the queue, so there was much shuffling to and fro and not much chance of getting past. Eventually the crowd cleared a little and we managed to indicate that we were joining a friend who was already seated. Both Pille and I had our jackets and bags ready to hand over to be stored in the coat cupboard, but the reception staff were by this stage so flustered that nobody asked us for our coats and we were ushered straight through to the table. I wouldn’t have minded, had it not been for the fact that a) other tables had clearly had the opportunity to hand in their coats, and b) the restaurant is not the most spacious, and coats and bags would definitely have been better off out of the way!
Nevertheless, we were eventually seated and handed menus, and had a moment to take stock of our surroundings. My first impression of the place is that it does indeed look like a reasonably smart Parisian bistro, minus maybe some Art Deco features. My second impression was that it was pretty seriously noisy – lots of chattering people and no soft furnishings to absorb any sound. And my third and least pleasant impression was one of smokiness. Clearly Galvin’s faithful rendition of a French bistro extends to the French smoking policy: they don’t even have non-smoking tables! And we had the misfortune of being seated next to a table who smoked between each and every course. Let me assure you that I will be the first to run through the streets of London in a one-woman victory parade when the ban on smoking in restaurants comes into effect later this year – nothing spoils a good meal for me quite as effectively as being forced to view your plate and your companions through a haze of second-hand smoke. But seeing as there was no escaping to a non-smoking table, we just had to grin and bear it.
The menu further reinforces the impression that you are in fact in the Montmartre rather than Marylebone: Bayonne ham, pork rillettes, confit duck leg, tarte tatin – it reads rather like a comforting greatest hits selection of bistro favourites. (There is also a terrifically well-priced pre-theatre menu – £17.50 for three courses – but this only runs between 6 and 7pm.) Having discussed our choices and made up our minds, we placed our order and the waitress assured us that the sommelier would be along shortly to take our wine order. So far so good. In the interim, I though I might go and wash my hands, so I attracted the attention of a passing waiter to ask directions. The ensuing conversation went something like this:
COOKSISTER: Excuse me – where is your ladies’ room?
WAITER: [look of panic flitting across his face] One moment, madame, I will call somebody.
[Cooksister looks perplexed. Waiter approaches a waitress, a huddled discussion ensues, culminating in his pointing Cooksister out to the waitress, who approaches.]
WAITRESS: Yes madame?
COOKSISTER: I would like to use your ladies’ room please.
WAITER: [eyeing customer warily] For…. ?
COOKSISTER: [by now fully bewildered, with no idea what answer is expected in this unusual situation] Erm, well, for me!
WAITRESS: [still not convinced of the legitimacy of this request] Do you want the toilet?
COOKSISTER: Well, I wasn’t quite going to put it like that but… yes!
WAITRESS: It’s the door on the left.
Was that really so hard?? I understand that English is not everybody’s first language, but I have asked that same question in restaurants across the capital, addressing waitstaff that spoke a variety of languages and I have never had such a bizarre response. And “ladies’ room” is not exactly an obscure phrase! Maybe staff dealing with a largely English-speaking clientele in a country where the official language just so happens to be English could be taught some of the basic non-food-related phrases that customers might throw at them? Just a thought. Or maybe it’s just the fact that I look like a rampant coke fiend who will cover their bathroom in fine white powder?! :o)
Anyway, I didn’t have long to ponder this as the starters arrived almost as soon as I returned to the table – but no sign yet of the sommelier. In fact, he only arrived when we were more than halfway through our starters without a word of apology. Okeydokey. He seemed knowledgeable enough (and he was English, which I thought was quite an avant garde step for a French restaurant to take!) but by then we were just keen to have any wine to accompany our starter and were in no mood to enter into lengthy discussions. We eventually settled on a fairly light red which was meant to be a compromise between our varied menu choices – drinkable but not memorable. And at around £15, who wants to quibble?
The bill with wine, water and service came to £38 per person, which I thought was very reasonable given the excellent quality of the food. Overall, I thought it was an excellent approximation of a French bistro and certainly cheaper than a trip to Paris 😉 I could not find fault with any of the food at our table and I would be quite happy to go back there – but after 1 July when the smoke ban takes effect! If anything Bistrot de Luxe’s weak point appears to be its staff. Granted, the restaurant was packed on the night that we visited, but sadly the incidents described were intrusive enough to linger in the memory – and all of them could easily have been avoided. Excellent food is, of course, what you want in a restaurant, but competent service that leaves you feeling a little pampered would also be nice.
Liked: the food, very much!
Disliked: slightly odd service; the smoke from nearby tables
Galvin Bistrot de Luxe
66 Baker Street
London
W1U 7DH
Tel. 020 7935 4007
Fax. 020 7486 1735
e-mail info@galvinuk.com