The restaurant in this Mayfair club does a Sunday roast par excellence
IN SHORT:
Food: 8/10
Service: 9/10
Atmosphere: 8/10
Overall: 8/10
THE DETAIL:
In the top left hand corner of Grosvenor Square stands a white Edwardian manor house that serves as a boutique hotel, all day restaurant and members’ club, and rumour got out that their Sunday lunch is hard to parry. And it’s winter so a roast is what we do on Sundays.
The Twenty Two is an effortlessly grand affair. Its interior is calm, refined and the restaurant is appealingly blue and French in style, the staff immaculately turned out while affording the warmest of welcomes. So far so good. Then there are the touch points; The silver salt and pepper grinders seemingly the same weight as depleted uranium. The beautifully battered cutlery. The crisp linen. The generous spacing of tables. It all feels pretty fabulous.
Sundays also call for a Bloody Mary, and this one’s a doozy. Spicy, pale and delicious, albeit missing a stem of celery.
Executive Chef Alan Christie’s ‘minimal intervention’ style of cuisine sits very comfortably with a Sunday menu, which relies on the careful preparation of excellent ingredients, and is really what you want in this sort of restaurant: they are serving up the finest ingredients, why not let them sing their own song?.
For starters I selected the salmon tartar with avocado, crème fraîche and caviar, which was sublime. My guest opted for a creamy burrata accompanied by tomatoes in olive oil and it must be said the toms were ludicrously sweet and tender for midwinter. The sommelier approached with our wine, Argiano Rosso di Montalcino 2019, fruity, balanced and very dry, which he didn’t so much ‘open’ as ‘model’ for us. This is showbiz.
There is an à la carte menu but we were on a mission: a Sunday Roast and nothing else will substitute. The options are Mount Grace farm lamb, Cornish red chicken or sirloin of Aberdeen Angus beef, each accompanied by Yorkshire pud, roast potatoes, cauliflower cheese and seasonal veg. We had arrived in time for the last sitting so, unsurprisingly, the lamb was finished and we ordered the latter two options.
Chicken is ordinarily a tricky one make worth eating out for, but this one was different, Marinated overnight prior to roasting it had then the breast meat served cut into thick chunks preserving the juicy, creamy, er chicken-ness of the meat, while the tender thighs were ballotined on the bone. The essence of roast chicken. Wonderful. The side dishes were all perfect and the beef had been slow-cooked and reverse-seared to achieve a consistency of pink with a strong caramelisation to the outside; Quite the way to tackle such a cut and simply a triumph.
I threw down the gauntlet to the waiter for desserts, who came back with vanilla cheesecake with honey roast figs and, because it was only the members’ club list, a giant 22 cookie. I’d take the former all day long though the cookie was quite fun.
But here’s the thing: there was something very special about this dining experience that was greater than even the sum of its parts. It was a flawless lunch. From the décor to the layout to the food and its delivery, and the staff who balanced on that fine line between informality and formality where charm lies. If I were to be super-critical, it might have been better to have just one person waiting the tables, rather than the three or four that attended, but honestly I’m just fishing for something to say that isn’t gushing.
Sunday lunch is special. Too often it disappoints as venues grind out overcooked meat and undercooked potatoes in whirl of turned tables seeking to cash in on one of the guaranteed banker services. Times are tough in hospitality and I don’t blame those places. But as I said, Sunday lunch is special, and Sunday lunch at The Twenty Two is very special indeed. It’s not cheap at £100 p/p including service but when has great ever been cheap?
The Twenty Two , 22 Grosvenor Square London W1K 6LF
Bookings can be made here
Serving times for Sunday roast: 12:00 – 15:00
Related post: Restaurant review: William IV Dining Room, Shoreditch