Beauty can dazzle you to all kinds of imperfection. And – gasp! – Bronte is an absolute stunner. It’s the sort of place that could move a Samuel Taylor Coleridge to paroxysms of poetry, a vast, multi-roomed pleasure dome in shades of clotted cream, rose gold, shagreen and candyfloss. The first thing that strikes you as you walk through the copse of “Fan” chairs on the colonnaded terrace, under a firework display of glittering lampshades, is a vast bar fashioned from polished pink concrete. Toto, we’re not in Trafalgar Square any more.
Any restaurant design spod will instantly know who’s responsible: yes, it’s Tom Dixon. And what a job he has done, with what was previously the uninspiring Strand Dining Rooms. Chapeau, Mr Dixon, and your Design Research Studio, chapeau. We’re seated in the rearmost room by a luminous pewter bar, its subtlety highlighted by the gaudy beauty of many, many backlit booze bottles. Walls are punctuated by “Cabinets of Curiosities” collected from around the world, and the menu globetrots with the same giddy abandon: miso yoghurt, “weeping tiger dressing”, manuka honey, shiso, tabouli (sic). It doesn’t know whether it’s in Bangkok or Beirut, nor does it much care. Here’s one menu listing in its entirety: “Hot smoked, soy glazed salmon, purple potato, mizuna, edamame, kaffir lime & kalamansi.” Pass the sal volatile.
It comes with an interesting pedigree: executive chef is Andrew Lassetter, ex of Denim (deceased), Circus (deceased) and Cocoon (deceased). I don’t miss any of ’em. Head chef Jonathan Villar has worked with The Providores’ Peter Gordon, a man with the rare talent to pull off this kind of hectic fusion with real aplomb. His crown isn’t about to be challenged here. The bastardised Scotch egg is a bit of a calling card these days, and Bronte’s version namedrops like a gap year backpacker: prawn and chorizo “sausage”, owing a debt to both the Iberian and Chinese love of pork with seafood, plus Aleppo pepper and Thai fish sauce notes in its dip. For all its showy efforts, it only manages pleasant.
Many of the dishes are prettier than they are delicious. “Tuna, watermelon, pickled beetroot, yuzu, white soy, wasabi and sesame” looks glorious, but only two of the dice-sized cubes are tuna; it’s fridge-freezing, too, and the constituents are obliterated by the dressing. For central London, nothing is wildly expensive, but many items are bulked up with ingredients that cost bugger all: chilly, Vietnamese-style summer rolls of crab and avocado are swollen with rice noodles; a version of their miso slaw turns up with almost every plate (they must grate cauldrons of the stuff). And I’m not convinced that steak, gnarly and sinewy with half a roast garlic head plonked on top like a poultice, is of the finest quality. Thank goodness for the fun stuff: soft-shell crab is deftly fried, its tempura coating lacy and crisp with slaw (uh-huh), nam prik and a “coconut and rice muffin” that’s a bit like a south Indian idli. Or, as the pal says, “a mattress”. We can’t stop nibbling at its puffy edges. “Weeping tiger” steak is nothing like the Thai classic salad: it’s two mini-kebabs of beef in a treacly, pub-BBQ glaze served with a sorta salsa: eminently neckable without being likely to trouble tigers with any kind of delicious pungency.
Staff are stoically good humoured, perhaps this is a trenches camaraderie caused by having to wear a strapped, leather uniform, the sort of thing favoured by the torturers in Hostel. “Do you like wearing that?” I ask one. “It’s the most wonderful thing I’ve ever worn!” he beams. They have an equally cavalier approach to that menu. “What’s ohba leaf?” I wonder. “It is,” comes the reply, “a leaf from the ohba plant.”
Bronte, named because you can see Nelson, aka the Duke of Bronte, from the outdoor terrace, will appeal to design-conscious restaurant-goers for whom food isn’t the primary consideration. Yes, they do exist: on one visit, Mary Portas is holding court from a malachite-coloured banquette. And I unreservedly love the cocktails, and the charming Italian barman with the martini tattoo who whisks up drinks “specially designed for you, madam”. But, cabinets of curiosities and pink concrete bars notwithstanding, I’m not coming back for the food. Still, the bill comes fastened with a rose-gold paperclip, so what more do you want?
• Bronte 1-3 Strand, London WC2, 020-7930 8855. Open all week, 8am-11pm (Fri midnight, Sat 9am-midnight, Sun 9am-11pm). About £50 a head plus drinks and service.
Food 5/10
Atmosphere 8/10
Value for money 7/10
