Beast is a steak and crab joint thats both deeply silly and ruinously pricey. But the owners are deadly serious
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Beast, 3 Chapel Place, London W1 (020 7495 1816). Meal for two, including wine and service: £200
You could easily respond to this weeks restaurant with furious, spittle- flecked rage. You could rant about the posing-pouch stupidity of the meat- hanging cabinet that greets you as the lift doors open, and the frothing tanks of monstrous live Norwegian king crabs next to it, each 4ft across. You could bang on about the bizarre pricing structure, and the vertiginous nature of those prices; about the rough-hewn communal tables that are so wide you cant sit opposite your dining companion because you wouldnt be able to hear each other, and the long benches which make wearing a skirt a dodgy idea unless youre desperate to flash the rest of the heavily male clientele. You could shake your fists and roll your eyes and still not be done.