The dining room at Tom Brown is at the front of the hotel, so there's plenty of sunlight (making it a great place for lunch).
What can you tell us about Tom Brown at The Capital?
Tom Brown is best known for his time at the Michelin-starred Cornerstone in Hackney. When that closed, the chef always planned to open something at the same level elsewhere in town, while still running the more casual Pearly Queen restaurant in Shoreditch (also well worth a look).
Where he's ended up has turned out to be something of a homecoming as Brown originally made his big break in this very room, working at Outlaws at The Capital many years ago as Head Chef. Now he's in charge of the whole operation himself and it's his name on the door. If you've been missing Cornerstone and the kind of cooking Brown did there, you'll want to check this out.
Where is it?
You'll find The Capital right around the corner from Harrods (Knightsbridge is the best tube stop, of course) with the restaurant taking up most of the hotel's frontage, meaning it gets a fair bit of light.
It's a small restaurant by central London hotel standards, seating only 20 or so people. If you can, you'll want to grab one of the tables by the window. If you're facing the window you'll see it's a great spot for Knightbridge people-watching (or for watching a very expensive Porsche get a parking ticket, as on our visit), while the designer's use of mirrors means you still get a good sense of the dining room behind you.
What about a pre-lunch/dinner drink?
Your best bet is The Capital Bar, which has a moonlight theme to it (lots of pictures of the moon adorn the space and there's a faux starlit ceiling). The meal at The Capital starts here regardless, where you're given a small glass of sake to kick things off:
The start of the meal, with Umeshu plum sake in the bar. We covet that glass.
Once you're done with the drink, it's not quite time to go into the dining room yet, because there's a little detour first as you're led into the kitchen to have the first snack. If you're a seasoned diner, you'll have seen this done before in other Michelin-starred establishments, but it's always a lovely touch at the start of any meal.
You'll have the first course in the kitchen and get to see the team who will be cooking your meal (here presented by senior sous chef Erik Miotto)
And this starts things off - a bite-sized canapé which is a crispy tart shell filled with beetroot, ketchup, fig & port jelly and a mussel stuffed with mussel parfait. It's an early indication of the intricate work that will go into your meal.
Then it's into the dining room proper. As with the chef's other restaurants (and in his previous appearance at The Capital), the main focus here is seafood, with nearly every dish featuring it in some form or another.
It's generally a tasting menu affair with six or eight courses at lunch and 10 or 12 at dinner. It's a bit of a shame the longer versions of the menu aren't available at lunchtime, particularly at the weekend when there's more time to enjoy them (and work it all off in a walk around either Green or Hyde Park). There is a three-course option for £50, which is pretty good value for such high-end cooking. We went for the eight-course lunch (£100), so here's a taste of that:
Slow-cooked oyster, seaweed and toast, which they call "a triple decker prawn toast, but instead of prawns we make it with oysters". It's topped with a poached oyster and a little hot sauce.
If you're opting for the longer version of the menu, one of the signature dishes is a charcuterie plate where everything is cured fish (with a bit of roe and caviar in the middle).
This was probably our favourite (savoury) course - crab custard with pink grapefruit, exceptionally well-balanced in flavour and we could have immediately had this all over again.
Tuna tartare with soy and quail egg. Gorgeous.
Here, bass is topped with a chicken and mushroom mousse and wrapped with leeks, served with roast chicken jus and asparagus. This is essentially the main course.
From their pastry chef, another of our favourite courses, a dessert that's a vanilla parfait filled with Alfonso mango compote and sauce, with a pistachio praline. The wonderfully textured dessert matches the mango and pistachio flavours perfectly. At this point, it's a strong contender for our dessert of the year.
What about drinks?
A wine pairing is planned, but not quite ready at the time of writing. Instead, we'd say follow our lead (as recommended by their great sommelier), choose a white wine to take you through and a glass of red for the main bass course. For Knightsbridge, the prices are really decent. Sure, you can choose the odd £200 bottle of wine, but the entry level is £40 with quite a few options below the £60 mark, which is not bad at all for a Michelin-bound restaurant in Knightsbridge. We went for a 2023 Sicilian Grillo by Alessandro do Camporeale, which was a good match for the whole meal.
Overall thoughts
It was early days when we visited Tom Brown at The Capital and while there were still some kinks to work out, it's clear that there's an awful lot of talent in the kitchen and this restaurant will go a long way. Here, you'll get a seafood meal like no other in London with some real inventiveness in the dishes, along with a warm, welcoming service. We liked the touches of starting in the bar and kitchen and can see that whole thing expanding. With dishes still being worked on and continually improved (we tried a nearly-there dish in progress of oyster ice cream), Brown should be getting that star back soon.
More about Tom Brown at The Capital
Where is it? The Capital, 22-24 Basil St, London SW3 1AT
How to book: Book online or call 0207 591 1200
Find out more: Visit their website or follow Tom Brown on Instagram @cheftombrown.
Hot Dinners ate as guests of Tom Brown at the Capital. Prices are correct at the time of writing.
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