Como Lario
So you’ve spent a day in town, and need some replenishment before hitting the London nightspots. You’ve a choice - the easy option of clicking ‘zero’ for room service, or trying to be a little creative and visiting one or two of our favourite restaurants.
Just off Sloane Square lies Como Lario, an unconventional family restaurant that offers classic Italian cooking served by friendly professional staff - very much ‘La Dolce Vita’. You’ll find ‘Il Patrone’ keeping an eye on you, and if he isn’t you can be sure one of the many black and white celebrity photographs adorning the walls will be. Once tasted the pasta will make you a lifetime addict but ‘Attenzione!’ with the red wine - it’s very drinkable…
Hakkasan
The Christian Liaigre-designed glamour-catacomb in Northern Soho-land, Hakkasan, is almost from another world. Think a Tarantino-esque film set with subdued nightclub lighting, set deep underground. Entry is granted by a man-mountain doorman standing at an innocuous street doorway, you descend the grey-green stone staircase into a large dining room, divided up into discrete areas by oriental screens of geometric design. The blue lighting is subdued and lets waiters and waitresses pass by as ‘ghosts’.
Dimmed lights, pink orchids and candles, sharply-dressed (in black - what else?) staff complement the Oriental/Eastern food superbly. Take soft-shell crab with hot and sour sauce, stir-fried lobster tail in XO sauce, steamed crab in Shao Hsing wine, stir-fried jellyfish, or pan-fried rib-eye beef with sweet soya and almond as examples. The live DJ may make conversation difficult but you look sexy in the moody lighting, you’re having a ball, and isn’t that Uma Thurman in that yellow jumpsuit over there…with a samurai sword…
Photo: Benjamin Knapp Voith / Classic Driver