A capital roll call of starry chefs

This hotel kitchen has seen an impressive roll call of chefs, probably unparalleled in London, or even in any other city.

The list began in 1971 when the late Richard Shepherd was appointed ‘chef de cuisine’ (kitchen titles were all in French in the UK 50 years ago). After winning a Michelin star, he handed over to Brian Turner then to Philip Britten who passed the torch to the late Gary Rhodes, all of whom managed to retain the Michelin star. From 1999 until 2009 this kitchen was under the guidance of Eric Chavot who won a second Michelin star. There then followed a period of six years until 2019 when the kitchen was run by Cornish chef Nathan Outlaw who also retained a Michelin star.

The restaurant in question is at The Capital Hotel in Basil Street, Knightsbridge. As you can see above, it is relatively small, with only 28 covers, but for 50 years it punched far above its weight, due in no small measure to the personal care and attention lavished on it by the hotel’s then-owners, David and the late Margaret Levin. When they sold it in 2017 to the American-based Warwick Hotels and Resorts, it seemed as though they had taken the magic ingredient with them. The restaurant attracted little attention.

Then in spring 2024 Solomon Khaddour, The Capital’s general manager, had a clever idea. He phoned Tom Brown, the Cornish-born chef who had been the head chef at The Capital when Outlaw was in charge, and had gone on to open Cornerstone restaurant in Hackney, which won a Michelin star and I reviewed most enthusiastically in January 2019. Brown was asked whether he would be interested in returning to The Capital. Cornerstone has closed but Brown has also opened The Pearly Queen in Shoreditch, a fun fish restaurant with talented Irish chef Paddy Maher.

The timing was immaculate. Brown, 37 (seen above with our recent lunchtime amuse-bouche), could see that Cornerstone was not able to generate the revenue he had once imagined it might, and was happy to return. The restaurant ‘Tom Brown at The Capital’ opened over Easter this year – a notoriously quiet period in London – with Brown responsible for all aspects of all the food served in the hotel including the bar food and the room service.

Certain things cannot change, however, and one of these is the size of the restaurant. It is no bigger – a maximum of 28 customers – and that today means that the hotel, and Brown, have to entice as high as possible a spend out of their limited number of customers. At lunch there are three menus on offer: at £50 with choices at each of the three courses, at £75 for five courses with no choice and at £100 for seven prescribed courses. In the evening there is a five-course menu at £75 and a nine-course tasting menu at £125.

Brown explained, ‘There is one challenge facing every chef opening today and that is that he or she must offer value for money. But what is value for money here in Knightsbridge, a stone’s throw from Harrods, is different from what is considered good value in many other parts of London. And it just so happens that I have spent the past 17 years as a chef specialising in fish which just becomes more and more expensive. I would argue that what I have opened here is not really a fish restaurant in the same way that Bentley’s or Scott’s or J Sheekey have been for years and I hope will continue to prosper for just as long. Mine is a restaurant where I and my sous chefs, Alex Parker and Erik Miotto, cook a very precise series of dishes that happen to be almost entirely fish-focused. I think that what we’re aiming for here is a fine-dining restaurant that specialises in fish.’

Precise is certainly a suitable adjective to describe Brown’s style and approach. We began our impressive lunch by agreeing that the choice provided by the £50 menu was extremely attractive. For a first course we could choose between bream, soy and quail egg or mackerel, hazelnut and rhubarb. Main courses were cod and asparagus with a lobster sauce or plaice, whisky and wild mushrooms while dessert was a choice of chocolate, olive oil and capers or Alphonso mango and lime.

But first of all came the bread service, a milk loaf and another with Guinness and seaweed (above) served with a lip-smacking dashi butter and an amuse-bouche of a mussel and beetroot croustade, a combination so complex it had me wondering whether I should just ask for the bill and leave with my appetite almost satisfied.

I was glad I stayed. The mackerel and the slightly tart rhubarb made the excellent combination shown above. The round piece of cod shown at the top of this article was cooked à point and was surrounded by vegetables just in season: asparagus, French beans, chard and mashed potato made from Jersey royals. This was followed by a slightly too creamy mousse with not quite enough of the Alphonso mangoes which have just come into season (see below). With all this, we drank a bottle of appetising 2023 Grüner Veltliner Kogelberg from Peter Schweiger for £70. The bill for three (it was JR’s birthday lunch so the rather slow service in a quiet restaurant didn’t matter too much) came to £272.55 including a steep 15% service charge and £6.50 for each bottle of mineral water (!!).

Brown is a stickler for which fruit, vegetables and fish are in season. ‘I talk to Vernon Mascarenhas of Thornicrofts, our vegetable supplier, almost every day to find out what is coming’, he told me. ‘For example, we have a dish of scallops with blood oranges on the menu and sadly the blood oranges are coming to the end of their season. So I discussed this with him and he sent in some kohlrabi and forced rhubarb which we will play around with until inspiration strikes one of us.’

I wondered whether he had a similar relationship with his fish suppliers. ‘Yes and no’, came Brown’s reply. ‘The thing with fish is that all fish are the same whoever catches them and when they have just been landed. The key is how they are looked after from the quayside until they reach my kitchen. My favoured fish supplier at the moment is Flying Fish, who are based in Cornwall, because of their attention to these details.’

Brown and the youthful Parker doubled as waiters and brought several of the dishes from the kitchen to our table. Was this because he recognised JR or because our guest was his veg supplier, I asked?

‘No’, came his definitive reply. ‘We do this all the time. It’s part of a process to break down the barrier between the restaurant and the kitchen. In the evening, after we have served the amuse-bouche in the bar, we take the customer through the kitchen and then to their table. This is an old layout and we don’t have the luxury of an open kitchen which I have to say is not to everybody’s liking.

‘But it’s part of the restaurant’s history. Just like all the smells and memories of all the great food and wine which so many good chefs have cooked in here before me. This is a tradition that we will definitely live up to as I would very much like to be part of the roll call of well-known chefs who have cooked at The Capital.’

Tom Brown at the Capital 22–24 Basil Street, Knightsbridge, London SW3 1AT; tel: +44 (0)20 7591 1200

Every Sunday, Nick writes about restaurants. To stay abreast of his reviews, sign up for our weekly newsletter.

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Nick Lander