London is dying, we're told. London is over. And if even if you do deicde to venture into the 'past it' city you'll get your phone nicked the moment you step outside. Apparently.
With so much political captial being built on the back of doing down our 2000 year old city, we should ask exactly when was London better, 'cooler', or perhaps safer?
The doom mongers will almost certainly say the 90s, or at least one of the decades either side of it. So it might be reassurring to find that a restaurant popularised by paparazzi shots of Princess Diana is still doing a roaring trade on a Sunday lunchtime. I say "still", but in truth Arlington is 'Le Caprice' reborn. Same venue, same owner, same high standards.
We sat down to try the weekend set lunch menu as part of our series on dining out for under £30.
'Round the back of the Ritz' doesn't conjure up much confidence in a good outing. But that's exactly where Arlington is. Arlington Street is a pretty unassuming, high-end, dead end, and you won't have been to the end of it unless you've been to the restaurant - or know about a secret passage for those heading from Green Park to Pall Mall. But the moment that the lambent glow of the blue neon sign welcomes you to the end of the cul-de-sac anyone who was alive in the mid-90s will start to get a sense of deja vu.
Stepping through a revolving door that has spun more of the world's gliterrati than Mark Borkowski, you realise how small and initmate the restaurant really is. Reception, cloakroom, bar - all in black and chrome art deco to match the towering 1930s apartment building in which it has built it's reputation of equal stature. If it weren't for the melange of monochrome the black-and-white photographs of past customers might look like an Italian restaurant in Soho - but somehow here it works.
The restaurant is busy and our table won't be ready for a few minutes, so our coats are taken, and we're promptly asked if we'd like a drink while we wait. Yes we do. Not that I need any excuse, day or night, to order a Bloody Mary, but as it's Sunday it feels appropriate. The wait gives us a chance to take in the atmosphere. The crush by the bar adds to the impression that this is 'somewhere'. All the good design and décor in the world can't replace that feeling. Drinks arrive, and we're shown to a round table, seats facing outward for a front-row experience of Arlington on a busy December service.
At the bar
Bloody Mary
To begin
Wimbledon Smokehouse Smoked Salmon
The main event
Grilled Cumberland Sausage
Pudding
Clementine Tart
From the wine list
Billecart Salmon Brut Reserve
Food: £49.50*
Drinks: £109
Service:£23.77
Total for two: £182.27
*Our reviewer chose the Weekend Set Menu offering three courses for £24.75 per person.
The main menu has something for everyone. It's relatively simple fare made special. The Bang Bang Chicken, which is both inexplicably and inextricably linked to Le Caprice remains modestly priced. But we're here for the set menu, which offers a choice of two dishes for each course. I choose the smoked salmon to start. My fellow diner can't be persuaded to opt for the soup, but we both agree it's remarkably delicious for such a simple dish, especially at this price point. It tastes how smoked salmon should, but often doesn't. In the pursuit of transparency I can't avoid telling you that any prospect of this being a cheap lunch has been ruined by the temptation afforded by a reasonably-priced bottle of Billecart Salmon champagne. But, if this was Dry January we wouldn't have breached our £30pp limit. And the extensive wine list has something for all budgets.
The cumberland sausage is similarly exactly how you'd want it; generous in number, matched with a delicately presented, yet somehow hearty, piping of mash. It needs to be said that the service has, from the moment we arrived, been flawless, warm, and without any hint of hurrying you out the door for the next guests. Although most new London restaurants have finally ditched the loathsome 'no reservations' policies, they've often been replaced with a booking process that keeps reminding you how keen they are to take money from punters who will be sitting in your place in an hour and a half. Not so at Arlington.
Clementine Tart rounds off a fully-formed set of dishes. My dining partner reveals that he wasn't looking forward to a tart, but was wholly won round. I was, and it exceeded my expectations. But the food isn't really the point here. Yes, it's delicious, but it's designed not to get in the way of the real reason you're here: to enjoy the atmosphere with people you really want to spend all afternoon with.
It might sound like I'm repeating myself by saying that everything about the experience is 'exactly as it should be'. In the middle of turbulent geo-politics, living in a City that is too-often portrayed as 'not how it once was', it's a great comfort to know that Le Caprice's successor, run by the original team, is fully-booked, serving excellent food, precisely how you would hope or expect it to be. If you yearn for the London that pundits tell you is lost, just book in to Arlington for the weekend lunch.
We chose the Weekend Set Menu offering three courses for £24.75 per person.
★★★★★ 5/5
Arlington Restaurant
20 Arlington St, London SW1A 1RJ arlington.london
Follow @arlingtonrestaurant on Instagram.
