The Savoy Hotel is a theatre playing Mean Girls with a hotel attached to it, so you can expect it to both dream and fail. That is a polite way of saying that its new restaurant, Gallery, is not a success, but the Savoy will survive it. Though it didn’t survive the Peasants’ Revolt. It burned down, courtesy of medieval far-leftists who I would suspect were less annoying than modern far–leftists. They could hardly be more so, and I’m sure Geoffrey Chaucer, who wrote some of the Canterbury Tales on this site, would agree.
Gallery is beige at its most self-deceptive: flounces, columns, mirrors
I review Gallery because it is new, because it inhabits the vast windowless room in the middle of the hotel and I’m curious to know what works here – a Bavarian beer hall, a Wimpy Bar, another theatre? I’ve never had a perfect meal at the Savoy, but that means nothing: London exists to renew itself. That’s its nature.
The Savoy has front, and I love it for this: it treats life like an eternal opening night, which is what it should be. The entrance hall is the most gaudy and absurd in London, so probably the world: the theatre producer D’Oyly Carte, who built this hotel with the profits from The Mikado, designed a place that would make Las Vegas look understated. I visit at Christmas, so it’s worse. There is a golden champagne van outside with a tiny garden, for people who like champagne from golden vans with tiny gardens. It has a picket fence like in Oklahoma! Inside, there are gleaming floors, mad pink floristry, and – why? – a diamond necklace. Like all famous hotels, the Savoy has its own reality, even its own map. There is a signpost pointing to the American Bar, the florist and something called Scoff: that is, it’s Narnia for the very rich and, though no one could call it tasteful, it is mesmerising.
Gallery is gaudier than the entrance hall. I’m not suggesting that minimalism would work – no one is for plywood and concrete here – but it is Dictator Chic, and I tut at this because it’s ugly, and these people are not to be encouraged by thinking the world – the Savoy! – has a place for them. Vladimir Putin would be comfortable here – Dictator Chic is windowless, it repels bullets – and he shouldn’t feel comfortable anywhere. It’s beige at its most preening and self-deceptive: flounces, columns, mirrors, swirls. The band is playing the theme tune from Bridgerton, which causes my heart to contract in sorrow, and the diner floats in the eerie netherworld of other people’s Instagram feeds. This restaurant represents the victory of Instagram over food, and therefore humanity.
On the food, I want to say – because I love the idea of the Savoy and a great hotel is only an idea – it’s my fault I ordered pizza. Who orders pizza outside of a pizza restaurant? It feels like supermarket pizza – Co-op pizza – and, worse, it needs more time in the oven. I can’t tell the staff: they are too kindly.
Perhaps I should have ordered beluga caviar (£630 for 50g), or a Korean spiced cauliflower steak (£36) with pickled cabbage, or a Caernarfon tomahawk steak with confit mushroom and peppercorn sauce (£110)? My companion orders Escoffier’s consommé with truffle brioche and vegetables and duck en croute with grape jelly and a fig relish: both are unhappy. Then we both have a Savoy sundae, which involves us whingeing at the waiter for more sprinkles from the sprinkle tray he carries, and guards overzealously in my view. It’s a child’s sundae, a dictator’s sundae, a bad sundae. Caveats aside, this is Kim Jong-un’s ideal all-day diner, and it will go the same way as he.
Gallery at the Savoy, the Strand, London WC2; tel: 020 7836 4343.
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