Le Caprice (Hardcover)

Well, the recipes of course, from chef Mark Hix, are first rate. "Salmon Fishcakes with Sorrel Sauce" (the restaurant's signature dish), "Caesar Salad", "Potato Pancakes with Bacon and Maple Syrup", "Tripe and Onions", "Griddled Scallops with Mousseline Potatoes", "Eton Mess"--these are all excellent, funky dishes. But a restaurant is more than its food. Gill does a good job of explaining why Le Caprice is so special. His baroque ruminations on the development of restaurant food and the craft of the chef are interesting, if a little self-regarding, though not especially a propos. But something very strange seems to have happened. Can it be that the art directors and photographer have conspired to hijack the project? Because, bafflingly, the look chosen is like an extended, hyperactive magazine spread, hectically drawing attention to its own innovative, buzzy, urban fashionableness. In one photograph the food looks as if it has been thrown at the wall; others depict it variously from underneath, through glass, decorated with costume jewellery (e.g. raw tripe), under ultra- violet; another shows a model in a leopard skin hat gnawing a whole roast chicken; in yet another, Rhona Cameron slings a martini across the room. This is not the restaurant evoked by Gill. This is some tacky, flash-in- the-pan, media-hyped joint. For perfectly good reasons, no doubt, Gill doesn't mention the brash and ambitious moules 'n' frites chain Belgo that recently acquired Le Caprice and the Ivy, but one might surmise that its sticky, unsubtle fingerprints are all over the book. --Robin Davidson

Book Information
The famed London restaurant, La Caprice, has been a contemporary restaurant since the forties. It is not a modern restaurant--a contemporary is someone who shares your tastes, style and experience and someone modern tells you what taste and style you should be experiencing.

Le Caprice reflects the appetites of creative London. Everyone who has added an exclamation mark to the cultural life of the capital has voted on this menu at some time or another. This is a restaurant that has always been run by the customer's delight rather than the chef's whims.

From simply the best Eggs Benedict and Chopped Steak to the Epicurean Baked Razor Clams and Truffle-Studded Roast Capon, the recipes from Le Caprice are a directory of what fashionable London fancies on a plate most often. Whether it is the lightest lunch, a restorative brunch or an indulgent first-night celebration, Le Caprice provides with practised elan and panache.

Alongside the tried and applauded recipes, AA Gill takes a characteristically oblique look at why eating out has become the most popular social and cultural activity in recent years.

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