Dinner By Heston Blumenthal takes the the top gong.
Taste joined the Tatler Restaurant Awards on May 9 for all the theatre, regulation quaffing of Laurent-Perrier, cup cakes and canapés that make up a cracking award ceremony. Tatler's 2011 Restaurant Guide is out now with the June issue of the magazine, so the awards - presented by the guide's editor, Jeremy Wayne - bookend what appears to be a thoroughly enjoyable romp through London's best dining rooms over the past year.
Best Restaurant went to Dinner By Heston Blumenthal.
Executive chef Ashley Palmer-Watts collected the award on behalf of
Heston and the team while Jeremy Wayne suggested the audience hope for
the best and attempt to secure a booking by the 2012 Olympics.
The Laurent-Perrier Lifetime Achievement Award struck a sadder note, with Ruth Rogers of The River Café accepting the Laurent-Perrier Lifetime Achievement Award on behalf of herself and co-founder of their iconic restaurant, Rose Gray, who died in 2010. It was one of the most influential collaborations in modern British cuisine: Theo Randall, Jamie Oliver, Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, Sam and Sam Clark (Moro, Morito) and April Bloomfield (New York's Spotted Pig) count among The River Café's alumni.
Tristan Welch's Launceston Place picked up the bouquet for Best Wine List - quite an honour in a city full of well-endowed cellars. Pierre Koffmann sealed his reputation as a great chef and teacher and legendary figure in London's restaurant scene with the Best Kitchen prize for Koffmann's at The Berkeley.
Even the East End got more than a sideways glance this year (it's
impossible to ignore London's nightlife gravitating east), both in print
- Viajante, Pizza East and Whitechapel Gallery - and a gong, with Brawn
picking up Best Newcomer. Terroir's new sibling on the Cockney flower
market cum hipsters' paradise, Columbia Road, Brawn dishes up an
unambiguously rustic take on Franco-Italian cooking with a focus on
charcuterie.
Other winners include David Collins Studio's design of Hakkasan Mayfair
for The 'It' Room Award (David Collins Studio has created interiors at
Marcus Wareing at The Berkeley, The Gilbert Scott, Roux at The Landau
and J Sheekey among many others). Best Front of House went to Stephen
Macintosh and Paulo de Tarso at Bar Boulud; the Test of Time award to theatreland stalwart Joe Allen; and Restaurateur of the Year to Russell Norman and Richard Beatty of the absurdly popular Polpo/Polpetto/Spuntino stable. One to watch, Jesse Dunford Wood of Notting Hill Gate's The Mall Tavern took the Rising Star Award.
Nuno Mendes of Viajante, Tristan Welch and Lauceston Place, and Pierre Koffman will appear at Taste of London 2011.