The lighter part of La Môme - the ideal space for lunch (until the terrace opens in the spring)
What can you tell us about La Môme?
This is the new restaurant at five-star hotel The Berkeley in Knightsbridge. Just over a year ago, its previous restaurant Marcus (by Marcus Wareing) closed its doors for good and it's taken until now for a replacement to take over the vacant space.
Rather than look to a Michelin-starred chef for a solution, as with its previous restaurants, this time around the hotel has taken up with a restaurant from abroad. La Môme comes from Cannes and Monaco, to be precise, where it has already proven to be a hit. The menu here has a Mediterranean/southern France influence, a style that's been a bit of a trend in London of late (another high-end Med-based restaurant Alba opened just a few weeks after this one, just down the road).
Where is it?
Assuming you know how to find The Berkeley itself, you'll find the restaurant just inside the main entrance to the hotel on the right. Much of the space has really been opened up when compared with the previous tenant, with three distinct spaces. As you enter the restaurant, you'll find the bar (with a few key dining tables down the middle) and on the right a sunlit section that takes good advantage of the glass ceiling of the front of the hotel (see the photo at the top). During the day, this acts as an extension of the dining room with lots of natural light - but at night it's transformed into part of the restaurant's bar.
As for the main dining room, that's a pretty vast affair that has a piano down one end:
The main room (about half of it, to be fair). You can just see the piano down the end and there's a private room off this space too.
It's a major change from its previous life as Marcus, which went for a much more traditional, slightly subdued look. This is all about bright colours and a bit of glitz (helped by the sixties Riviera-set photos that you'll see around the space). We went during the day where things were perhaps a little more relaxed but we can see that they're looking to bring some of the fun of Cannes and Monaco to Knightsbridge in the evening.
In addition to all that, they've also added a new terrace which will come into action when (if) the weather improves.
What can we expect from the food?
Looking at the menu, we'd say that the Mediterranean influence here shows itself mainly through a combination of French and Italian dishes, many served with a few theatrical flourishes and a few high-end Knightsbridge touches. Somewhat surprisingly for a major London hotel, there are quite a few differences between the lunchtime and dinner menus although we're not actually sure why that is. For example, we'd seen a rather tempting souffle on the menu, but that's only available at dinner.
The bulk of the menu (as far as the mains are concerned) is broken down into Josper-grilled meat and fish alongside pasta and risotto. Things start with bread, however, as you're served a small sourdough loaf alongside some olive oil into which is snipped some fresh thyme at the table. It's a nice touch and showcases some of the theatrical flourishes to come - some which, it has to be said, work better than others.
The bread and oil, complete with freshly snipped thyme.
One of the best examples of this theatricality comes early in the meal in the starters, with what we'd say is the must-have dish - the arancini. At this point, you may be thinking of deep-fried rice balls, but this is an altogether different proposition, instead coming to the table as one long slab of arancini.
Truffle Arancini & Tuna Tartare (£28) - Golden-fried risotto with truffle, stracciatella, fresh tuna tartare and trout roe. There's a steak tartare version of this too.
So you'll get shown this impressive creation before it's divided and plated and it's very, very good - a great start to the meal.
The arancini, plated.
Another early hit was a serving of really wonderful tarama, which comes beautifully presented, with blinis (although you can also use the above sourdough on this as we did, of course).
Tarama (£15) - Smoked cod tarama, topped with trout roe and Espelette pepper, served with warm mini blinis.
Prices are more or less as you'd expect for a high-end Knightsbridge hotel but if we're being frank, we've seen worse (i.e. more stratospheric) elsewhere. On the high end, there are dishes like the following king crab salad which raised an eyebrow or two at the price:
King Crab Salad (£59) - King crab with avocado, little gem lettuce, guacamole and mango dressing. It is pricey (king crab isn't cheap, mind) but to be fair it tastes (and looks) delicious.
So that's on the high end of things, for sure. But there are other dishes on the menu like their Australian Wagyu Tagliata, which are fairly reasonably priced for this five-star environment:
Australian Wagyu Tagliata (£32) - Josper-grilled Wagyu flank steak, thinly sliced with fresh arugula and parmesan. This is honestly pretty well priced for this part of town and a really well-cooked (i.e. not too much) piece of meat.
Elsewhere, one of the key signature dishes is their grilled sea bass, which comes flaming at the table. There are two sizes (600g or 1.2kg) and it's flambeed at the table before being served. Your mileage on the flambeeing may vary, however:
Our flaming sea bass (£56 for 600g) was a little underwhelming in the flaming side of things, in fairness. We'll put this down to early days as we saw another absolutely blazing one across the room.
The fish tasted lovely, but we couldn't help but thing that it was served a little plainly and that it could have truly benefited from some accompanying sauce. This might make us heathens, but we think it needed a little extra something. The flambe was all about show rather than doing anything for the taste.
Elsewhere on the menu, you'll find a huge 1.3kg tomahawk black Angus (£125) which is cut tableside and, based on the one served beside us, intensely smoky. On the pasta side, there's the high-end black truffle macaroni (£39) or the more down-to-earth veal tagliatelle (£26). And for the inevitable fashion/film crowd, there are plenty of salads on the menu.
What about dessert?
Aforementioned souffle aside, there's a big cookie served in a skillet to share that looks impressive (£29) and we're at least a little curious as to just how big the fior di latte ice cream to-share is given that it comes in at £30. But, as with the rest of the menu, among these high-end items are much more affordable options:
Chocolate fondant with a custard heart and vanilla ice cream (£15) - A notably well balanced fondant, not too heavy for the end of the meal.
Affogato (£8) - for those of you with busy lives who want their caffeine fix and dessert hit at the same time.
What about drinks?
Cocktails are in the £18-£22 price point which is about standard for this part of town and ours were both excellent. Based on this showing, this would be a very handy bar in Knightsbridge, with a notably different vibe to the ever-so-slightly more trendy nature of The Blue Bar across the lobby. As for the wine list, that's presented on an iPad menu which does bring to mind some restaurants we've been to on holiday, but we're not too sure that's a good thing - we prefer the old-school actual menu approach. It's a European-focused list, particularly around France, and price wise, your entry-level here is around £55.
On the left, the Coastline Punch - Trois Rivières rum, Campari infused with strawberry, fresh pineapple juice, lime juice, banana peel syrup (£22) and on the right a classic Sidecar.
Overall thoughts
La Mome represents an interesting change of direction for The Berkeley, one that's fits in more easily with their existing cocktail bar The Blue Bar than the chef-focused restaurant that was in this space before. Now it appears that the hotel is all about curating an experience. While we enjoyed a fair amount of the tableside theatre and the staff were lovely throughout, it that effect is probably more obvious when you go in the evening. There were plenty of dishes we enjoyed, like that fantastic arancini, the cocktails were well made and overall it's not too heavily priced for five-star Knightsbridge, all of which we applaud. A work in progress at this stage, but one to watch.
More about La Môme London
Where is it? Wilton Pl, London SW1X 7RL
How to book: Book online
Find out more: Visit their website or follow them on Instagram @lamome.london
Hot Dinners ate as guests of La Môme. Prices are correct at the time of writing.
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