We visited on the first night of the restaurant’s two-week soft opening period that runs until Saturday 3rd August when there is a 30% discount on the food only. All of the top team were in evidence including owner David O’Connor and sommelier Melania Battiston on the floor and in the kitchen, chef Gary Foulkes, previously of Angler in Moorgate and who worked with O’Connor at The Square back in the day.
The L-shaped dining room, arranged around a handsome marble-topped bar is an elegant, minimal space that, in the early evening, was flooded with natural light from floor-to-ceiling windows. There’s no bad place to sit with a choice of large well-spaced linen-clad tables set around the room’s perimeter or banquette seating in the middle of the room. Comfortable designer chairs and excellent acoustics (you’ll be able to hear your dining companion rather than the rest of the room) complete the tasteful, luxe picture. An outdoor rooftop terrace for drinks and dining will open at some point after the restaurant’s official launch.
The food offering is as pared back as the decor. Don’t expect any amuse-bouche or pre-desert action here, although a gougère filled with cheese fondue and some excellent focaccia and sourdough made a pleasing start to the meal. The a la carte menu with five choices at each stage reflected the cost of doing business in central London these days with the cost per head for food topping £100 unless you order very carefully.
Hand-rolled spaghetti with native lobster, Amalfi lemon and N25 Oscietra caviar, a dish that featured in the restaurant’s pre-opening publicity, was delicious but didn’t quite earn its £42 price tag. Two slices of lobster tail (there were three in the press photograph), adorned with a decent spoonful of N25 sat atop a twirl of beautifully made pasta, drenched in a nicely viscous bisque. Although faultlessly cooked, it was tricky to eat all the elements together and would have been less of a challenge had the meat been chopped through the pasta.
A chunky fillet of John Dory (£45) was again cooked to perfection and topped with a tasty olive and shallot relish. The advertised stuffed yellow courgette appeared on the plate as a sort of cannelloni of lightly cooked strips of the vegetable filled with an underpowered combination of rice, tomato, mint and parsley. Despite some artful stripes of parsley puree that added colour and elegance, the dish felt underworked and incomplete; it would have made more sense as part of a tasting menu. A mille-feuille of English raspberries, lemon verbena cream and baked raspberry ice cream (£17.50) from rising star pastry chef Kelly Cullen (Cornerstone, Angler) was a triumph, beautifully balanced and just sweet enough.
As at Medlar, the wine list is taken very seriously here with Old and New World equally well represented. With glasses from £8.50 and bottles from £38, markups are more than bearable. Guidance in matching a single bottle for under £70 to our chosen dishes was carefully considered although did result in just one suggestion of Etna Bianco, Benanti from Sicily that just ducked under our stated budget at £69.
As expected on its first day open to a paying public, Cornus is a work in progress but has the potential to be a serious gastronomic destination that will most likely appeal to a more mature dining audience.
WHEN 6th August
WHERE 27c Eccleston Place, SW1W 9NF
FOLLOW @cornusrestaurant
BOOK cornusrestaurant.co.uk
The Good Food Guide allows three to six months before anonymously inspecting a new restaurant. Look out for a full review coming soon.
