Le Caprice, London

A few days in London means an opportunity to try a few top restaurants. The first was Le Caprice on a Tuesday evening. This is a sister restaurant to the Ivy, and despite it being Tuesday, it was packed when we got there for our reservation at 9pm.

The maitre d’ informed us politely that our table hadn’t been vacated yet (my understanding was that Le Caprice has a strict 2 hour policy on vacating tables for the next sitting) but never mind, we were offered the wine list and proceeded to order the cheapest one we could find! (This was a pinot gris at about £26, but for some reason they brought us the pinot grigio at £31). I didn't realise until the bill came so just paid for it!

Le Caprice serves food at the bar as well as at tables, which means that if you are waiting, there is really nowhere to go. We started at the reception desk and ended up practically in the cloakroom, and weren’t seated till after half nine. The staff were incredibly friendly, polite and apologetic, however, so that compensated a little.

I ordered Garden pea soup to start – served hot or cold – I chose hot! Very green, very flavourful and great with the Sourdough bread that was brought to the table.



My main course was the famous Le Caprice salmon fishcake – a huge cake, more salmon than potato, covered in a hollandaise sauce and on a bed of spinach. We ordered a range of sides – fries, salad and green beans.



Dining companions Psycho Psu and Miss Babs had calves liver and squid respectively.

The portions were pretty big for a fancy restaurant. All the food was excellent. We couldn’t manage pudding, although this was partly due to the late hour we ended up eating.

We didn’t see any famous faces, either. The place was packed, however, and very loud! It’s not cheap, but it's what you would expect to pay for a well known restaurant in London. There is a service charge added to the bill and a cover charge of £2 each (I have not seen this outside the US before) so it can really bump the bill up.