What: It’s almost a century since Giovanni Quaglino opened his eponymous and cavernous subterranean restaurant in London St James’s and 33 years since it was relaunched by Sir Terence Conran and his partner Joel Kissin. Now it has been given yet another lease of life under The Evolv Collection in an attempt to return it to its heyday - ‘not as an exercise in nostalgia, but as a living institution restored for the present’ - according to the group. Open for lunch again for the first time in a decade, the rebooted Quaglino’s has one foot in the past and one in the future as it looks to tap into the capital’s new-found love with historic dining places (see also the reboot of Simpson’s in the Strand and Simpson’s Tavern).
The food: Overseen by executive chef Daniel Scott, the menu is described as following Giovanni Quaglino’s own journey from Piedmont to Cannes by way of The Savoy, bringing together Italian provenance, French classical technique and the best of British traditional dining. At lunch the restaurant serves a ‘democratisation menu’ of dishes priced at £10 each, which Martin Williams, The Evolv Collection’s chief executive, says has been designed to help revive Quaglino’s as a lunchtime option and show that such a glamorous setting doesn’t necessarily mean high prices. Options include rump steak Diane; pork cheek ‘rustida’ with polenta and salsa verde; breaded veal escalope; and seared sea bream. More expensive options are available from the grill section, with a range of steaks from £30 upwards with the option to add half a lobster for £48. At dinner, the grill option remains, but an a more extensive a la carte allows Scott and his team more freedom to channel the Quaglino’s of old, with dishes that include fillet of turbot Mountbatten, a dish inspired by the dish served at the wedding of Queen Elizabeth II in honour of her becoming the first reigning monarch to dine in a public restaurant (that being Quaglino’s). Other options include starters of grilled peaches and robiola cheese; and prawn cocktail; and main of rabbit risotto; and a whole lobster to share. With the revamp Williams has also attempted to create smaller, more intimate areas within the spacious dining room, and so guests also have the option of starting at the seafood counter for caviar, and king crab legs and closing off a meal at Le Tabac, where Quaglino’s famous (and oft pilfered ashtray) has been immortalised in chocolate and served with a gianduja cigar and where diners can also try its smoke-filled edible helium balloon (once a rather lengthy waiver has been signed) that is paired with a cocktail infused with cognac, pear and apple cordial, Bitter Bianco, Chinotto liqueur, Frangelico hazelnut liqueur and chocolate bitters. Let’s just say there’s a certain knack to not getting a sticky balloon all over your face that some people are yet to master...
The vibe: The new look honours the room’s Art Deco foundation but Evolv has not been afraid to change things. The impressive central staircase remains in situ but it now leads to a new central bar area and there’s also a raised central area that doubles as a second stage when it is not being used to hold a large dining table. The feel is modern not nostalgic, but nodds to the past can be spotted throughout the room, including art on its pillars that represent the different style of painting from the 1930s to present day. The room is also overlooked by the faces of Quaglino and Queen Elizabeth II etched onto larger mirrors, both of whom give the side eye to a central image of Terence Conran as he regards his domain. Upstairs a large, smart cocktail bar with deep crimson seats and lighting more than holds its own in the design stakes and turns into a bustling space as the evening progresses. “Our job was never to reinvent it, but to return it restored, alive, and every bit as glamorous as the room Giovanni Quaglino opened in 1929,” says Williams. “When Sir Terence Conran brought Quaglino’s back in 1993, he understood that real glamour should be open to everyone. Few rooms in London carry the history that Quaglino’s does, the royalty, the music, the feeling that anything might happen after midnight. We haven’t changed what Quaglino’s is; we’ve simply reminded London why it fell for it in the first place.”
And another thing: The restaurant has launched an ‘Ashtray Armistice’, calling on Londoners to hunt through their cupboards and return a piece of the restaurant’s history in exchange for a bottle of champagne. When Conran reopened the restaurant in 1993, he designed matte-moulded aluminium ashtrays in the shape of a Q, that were placed on every table and became the most stolen ashtray of all time. Over the restaurant’s first 10 years, an estimated 25,000 of the ashtrays went missing - vanishing at a rate of roughly 1,000 a month at their peak. Around 100 ashtrays have so far been returned.
16 Bury Street, London SW1Y 6AJ / www.quaglinos-restaurant.co.uk