Le Caprice, the legendary late 20th-century haunt of everyone from Hollywood and rock royalty to the real thing – Liz Taylor, Elton John, Princess Di – is set to be revived by Richard Caring at the Chancery Rosewood in the former US Embassy next year, but its soul will forever remain at its former St James’s site, now back under the control of original owner Jeremy King and reincarnated as Arlington. It’s the restaurant equivalent of a new engine being put under the bonnet of a vintage Aston Martin: it might look the same, but everything has been fine-tuned to perfection.
The mood: Party like it's 1989
If Annabel Croft and Alan Yentob, Nigella Lawson and Michael Caine are your idea of celebrity spotting, then the mood of late middle-aged nostalgia at Arlington will have you in raptures. First-timers may wonder what all the fuss is about (a primetime table is nigh-on impossible unless you have Jeremy King on speed dial) but for regulars from the King and Corbin glory days, Arlington is a reassuring resurrection. Much of it is new but designed to look like the old version, from the luminous set of black-and-white David Bailey prints to the mirror behind the bar which allows solo diners at the 12-seat counter to watch the table-hopping behind.
The food: modern European crowd-pleasers
The menu is a greatest hits for anyone who ate at Le Caprice or The Ivy in their 90s heyday: bang bang chicken or crispy duck salad followed by shepherd’s pie or salmon fish cakes. Nostalgia never tasted so good: eggs Benedict quiver under a buttercup-yellow hollandaise, pink-cooked calf’s liver comes with a piquant sauce diable, and for anyone who doesn’t wish to finish with the famous Scandinavian iced berries with white chocolate sauce, Welsh rarebit, bubbled up from the grill, functions as both cheese course and savoury pud.
Arlington is located at 20 Arlington Street, London
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