‘The cooking is mostly just fine, despite name-dropping as enthusiastically as its neighbour Tony Blair, albeit with on-trend ingredients rather than presidents’
It’s a long time since this reviewing lark delivered me to “Connaught Village”, an odd part of London behind Bayswater Road that isn’t quite Paddington or Marylebone. I’m early for dinner, so I have a wander. Past steakhouses I’ve never heard of, where I’m huckled by touts, shabby hotels pockmarked with “vacancy” signs, Indian restaurants whose house special is obsequiousness. Blue plaques announce the former homes of Winston Churchill and Lady Violet Bonham Carter. Blank, cobbled mews are creepered with security grilles. I nip into the handsome Victorian pub opposite the restaurant; it smells of mutton fat and the 1960s.
Who, apart from Tony Blair, obviously, would choose to live round here? And what possessed the owners of Salt & Honey to decide on this location for their second restaurant? It styles itself a “neighbourhood bistro”, but one where the bolognese is made with wagyu and everything that stands still long enough is truffled: truffle honey, truffled corn velouté, truffle mash, french fries with truffle oil. This is food designed for the rich and jaded.
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