Kerridge’s Bar & Grill, London
Kerridge's Bar & Grill
The Corinthia Hotel
10 Northumberland Avenue, London WC2N 5AE
020 7321 3244 www.kerridgesbarandgrill.co.uk
The Bill
Starters £15.50 - £95.00 | Mains £28.50 - £49.50 Desserts £13.50 - £16.50
The Score
Cooking 7/10 | Service 5/5 | Flavour 4.5/5 | Value 2.5/5
TOTAL 19/25
Proper lush! That seems to be a catchphrase of the likeable Tom Kerridge, whose name appears above the door here. Now the good Mr Kerridge made his name (and his 2 Michelin stars) at a pub, The Hand & Flowers in Marlow in Buckinghamshire. There is no danger of this place being mistaken for a pub. Proper plush, more like, as befits a hotel where room prices start at £599. If you want to bag The Actor's Penthouse, they will have a discreet chat with you about prices, though you can read the specification online. It features a bath with built in TV and separate rain shower. Crowded House take note. No need to take the weather with you when you come here.
Don't Try To Leave Without Paying
You get the picture. The room itself is stunning. I believe Tom's wife Beth was involved in the design and was responsible for the sculpture, including the slightly alarming man with no body who hovered above our table. On a first visit to London for about two years, we were rendezvousing with the Sometime Brewing Giant. His perpetual good nature was even further enhanced by the fact that his team, Brentford, had just secured promotion to the Premier League, and that he had bought his season ticket when they were still in the Championship. All good omens.
For my own part I was somewhat discomfited when I was given the wine list. It's one of these massive tomes which I suppose you have to expect in a hotel like this, where some diners are prepared to fork out £95 for a caviar starter.
- Can I help you at all? murmured the suave sommelier.
- Yes, I replied, lend me a couple of hundred quid so I can afford to buy a drink.
Now at this stage, in a lesser place, the response might well have been a look of withering scorn. Instead, our hero laughed and pointed me in the direction of a Sicilian white for £30, and something red for not much more. Both very good, as it happened. It should be said that all the service we enjoyed was of a similar standard. A delightful smiley bunch of people.
I expect you want to know about the food. It's a fairly compact menu - 6 starters, 7 mains, 4 puds plus cheese. A Cornish crab Scotch egg with yellow pepper velouté was interesting, though the cooking process does detract from the flavour of the crab. More successful was the pork and mushroom terrine. It came with piccallili and even more bread - this time with truffle butter - on top of the wonderful selection we had been given at the start. The sea bass couldn't have been fresher if Tom had just popped out in his boat and caught it that morning. Pigs' cheek pie was a proper (lush) pie, not one of those imposters with a disc of pastry on top. Warm but still crisp, a triumph of the pie maker's art. I had never had clotted cream mash before. As artery-cloggingly lovely as the name suggests, with cubes of black pudding for extra cholesterol. The fish eaters had ordered a side of chips. Purely in the interests of research I pinched a couple. I have to tell you, dear reader, that these were the BEST CHIPS IN THE UNIVERSE.
At this stage, unfortunately, I have to insert a sour note. If the food was good - and yes, it was - so it bloody well should have been at these prices. Fish and chips will set you back £36.50, and at least your spuds are included. Want to go down the steak frites road? Well a fillet will cost you £49.50, with an extra £6.50 for a plate of these historic fries. At first I was prepared to blame rapacious London hoteliers and Whitehall overheads. Out of curiosity I glanced at The Hand & Flowers a la carte menu. Deep fried fish (turbot, admittedly) and chips are £61.00; sirloin and chips £87.00. There's a fine line between making a living and taking the piss. I leave it to you to make up your own mind.
There’s an interesting debate to be had if we (I) get the time to meet up. TK has been rightly vocal on staff in the hospitality trade being paid a proper wage. It is sadly so often the case the steak sandwich in a decent cafe would take more than two hours pay of the person who served it. That combined with the reported absence of available staff, sees market forces increase pay. TK explained the £87 steak came from the top 1% of the best beef. He then explained, as you once insightfully told me, the cost of the food on the plate is a fraction of overall cost of the meal. What’s not said is how much folk in all fields are now hiking prices to make up for a lost year of business. Turns out the person who cut the little hair I’ve left is now on £100 on hour. We do, however, have long memories. Discuss
Well, I obviously hadn’t forgotten that, David, but let’s look at the maths. Take off the VAT. That’s £72.50 net. Castle Game, who supply all Tom Kitchin’s meat, are charging £21.99 per kilo retail for top quality Aberdeen Angus.Cheap I know, but that’s retail. In TK’s case, we ain’t talking Wagyu. Suppose he’s paying £35 a kilo, that’s £10.50 for that steak. The rule of thumb used to be a multiplier of three, though some are looking for 4 or 5. It’s still one hell of a mark up. On the staff wages front, many argue that you pay good money, raise the prices and prohibit tipping. Not the case in TK’s place where a gratuity of 12.5% is added, bringing the actual cost of your steak and chips to £97.88.
And it would take neither of us two hours to make a steak sandwich.
Some grim stuff going on to make up for the lost income. Lake District holiday cottage booking, phone call from the owners, sorry double booked we have to cancel, weeks now being advertised at 3x times original cost !
Is that the self same week which you booked? If so, a complaint to Trading Standards would be appropriate.