‘Five stars, no notes’: Arlington reviewed

Arlington is named for the 1st Earl of Arlington and his street behind the Ritz Hotel. It used to be Le Caprice, which was opened in 1947 by the Italian Mario Gellati, who would not, by the new rules, get into Britain now, but this is not a column about pain. In 1981 Le Caprice was taken over by Chris Corbin and Jeremy King, and it became the most fashionable restaurant in London. Princess Diana dined here and when Jeffrey Archer was released from prison, he ate here.

None of
these dishes could be improved. Five stars, no notes

After an interregnum from Richard Caring, under which Le Caprice closed in 2020 – it could not compete with Caring’s mad themed restaurants across Piccadilly – Jeremy King, who is more emotional and skilful than most restaurateurs, returned here. Le Caprice was his first restaurant. ‘It is in my DNA, my very soul,’ he has written, ‘I cannot contemplate it without emotion.’ He renamed it Arlington because Caring’s Caprice 2 cannot be ruled out. I last ate here in 2016 when it was Caring’s Caprice and it felt ghostly and necrotic: Madame Tussauds but you eat the waxworks.

Corbin and King lost their restaurants, which were among the best in London, in 2022, and this is part of a renewal. King has poured all his love into Arlington, and it has the air of a wedding or family reunion. He understands that diners are seeking love, not breadsticks – the breadsticks are incidental – and now they have it back and are delighted. King is an old-fashioned restaurateur, and he walks between tables. Hedge funds don’t do that. They can’t. They don’t have legs, and they don’t live here anyway.