The not-very-understated dining room at Brooklands
So what do we need to know about Brooklands?
This is the long-awaited new opening from Claude Bosi and his team at The Peninsula London. It's been a busy old year for Bosi who started the year by unveiling his Mediterranean bistro Socca. But this grand dining room in one of London's biggest new hotel openings of the year has got to be his highlight of 2023. The name refers to the restaurant and bar's design inspiration - the famous British racetrack and home of Concorde.
So where is it exactly?
You'll find it on the top floor of The Peninsula, overlooking Hyde Park. The rooftop restaurant has quite the entrance (once you find it). Walk through the ground floor lobby tea room and you'll find a lobby kitted out with both a Napier Railton racing car and the original Concorde nose cone.
Take the lift up - it's designed to be like a hot air balloon basket - to the eighth floor. The Peninsula itself, if you didn't know, is on Grosvenor Place overlooking Wellington Arch. It's right on top of Hyde Park Corner tube station.
Where should we meet for a drink first?
The very easy and obvious answer to this is the Brooklands Bar which we can confidently state is going to become a huge hit, independently of the restaurant.
It's a huge space with a frankly amazing view of London. Style-wise it's all very racing glam, there are replicas of furniture that would have been found in the Concorde passenger lounge as well as fun touches like tables made from racing car headlights.
The Brooklands bar - the best spaces to sit are those tables for two by the window
Drinks are courtesy of the hotel's director of mixology Florian Thireau who was last at the Cheval Blanc in Paris. We liked the way the cocktail menu was split into Mach 1, 2, 3 and 0 depending on how boozy the drinks were and our Morello, a Gimlet-style cocktail, (£22) made with Morello cherry, dried sultanas, black pepper, cinnamon leaves and Scotch, was fabulous.
The view from the bar - the whole skyline of London laid out for you from St Paul's on the left to Big Ben on the right.
If you're just coming to the bar, the restaurant's team are responsible for a short selection of bar snacks including pork pies, Cornish whelks with tartare sauce and sardines on toast.
That's the bar - what about the restaurant?
The Brooklands restaurant is one of those showstopper rooms that are few and far between in London, not least because this one has a whopping scale model replica of Concorde on the ceiling. There are digital speed signs as you enter and even the tablecloths have clouds as part of the design.
Brooklands' napkin rings - the most covetable/nickable (obviously we're not condoning that) bit of restaurant kit we've seen since the Quaglino's ashtray.
And the food?
From the beautifully illustrated map that graces the menu, you're told that this is a "gastronomic journey across the British Isles...using the finest, sustainably sourced British ingredients and traditional French techniques." Chef Director Claude Bosi and Chef de Cuisine Francesco Dibenedetto have come up with a range of menus for you to dive into, from a la carte (three courses £165) to the full-blown seven-course tasting menu we went for (£215).
Without wanting to ruin the surprise for you if you're going, here are some highlights from our lunch there.
The best bit of the warm-up course, Coronation chicken - chicken liver ice cream with fried baby onions in a Coronation sauce.
Exmoor Caviar, Roscoff Onion and Duck Jelly - There is a £25 surcharge for this dish, but if you're here anyway and pushing out the boat you might as well go for it as it's very, very good.
Cornish Squid and Artichoke - sourced from Cornwall's Flying Fish this is the freshest squid imaginable. Served on artichoke puree with squid sauce and cockle water
From the Dorset snails, Devil-style course - a tiny garden leaf snail tartlet, beautifully presented.
Great Fen Farm celeriac nosotto, crab and coconut - fans of Bosi's food will have tried his nosottos at Bibendum where the risotto rice is swapped out for a seasonal root vegetable - here it's celeriac.
Room for dessert?
Desserts go on for several courses when you include the palate cleanser of English rose wish shisu, wild strawberry and umeshu and the petit fours. Our favourite of the two desserts that we tried was the Scottish cep with banana and creme fraiche, but extra points go to this apple course for sheer beauty.
The best of British apples and wild meadowsweet - a mixture of both fresh and cooked apples.
Anything else we should know about it?
It won't be open until the spring, but the restaurant here also has another massive selling point, a large terrace overlooking Hyde Park. It's covered and heated and is bound to be busy once we come out of the winter months.
The huge Brooklands terrace overlooking Hyde Park
Overall thoughts
Brooklands - both the bar and restaurant - is elevated fine dining in every sense of the word. The bar is going to be huge and we think the restaurant should be too, once more people know about it. We had wondered about whether all the racing and aerospace designs would be a bit gimmicky but actually, they look amazing in situ and really make this feel like it's adding something different to the London restaurant scene.
More about Brooklands
Where is it? The Peninsula, 1 Grosvenor Pl, London SW1X 7HJ
Find out more: Visit their website or follow them on Instagram @brooklands.london
Hot Dinners dined as guests of Brooklands. Prices correct at time of publication.
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