Review at a glance: ★★★★★
Recommendations can cut deeper than insults. “Thought this might be your cup of tea,” while gifting a copy of Crafting with Cat Hair. “For your boyfriend’s birthday?”, pinging a link for adult bibs on Amazon. Telling anyone they’d suit Crocs. Restaurants are no different. What does it say when someone hypes Frankie & Benny’s?
Lilibet’s, then. Posh seafood gaff. Mentioned on WhatsApp, made its way into my DMs. “Saw this and thought of you,” said a friend, attaching a picture. This place, which looks like a Fabergé egg wrapped in Liberty wrapping paper? It’s a palace of tack, not Trumpian but Robert Kime on ket, a World of Interiors centrefold if every editorial conference started with coffee and a line. Me? I sniffed with Hyacinth Bucket-ish derision. Although, actually, I expect she would’ve liked it, given how much of the upholstery matches her wardrobe.
And then one day I spotted the green and glass frontage on Bruton Street, and wondered which silly bugger had opened a garden centre in the middle of Mayfair. Lilibet’s, the sign read. I went in for a nosy. And a martini. I spotted a two-course, £29 lunch menu (three for £34)— saw they weren’t rip-off merchants — and booked to come back two days later.
In the flesh, it’s still mad, but so brazenly mad it’s very easy not to mind. I’m all for maximalism: it suggests generosity, a love of life, a possible drink problem. Minimalists never seem to have a sense of humour. Here is a room that considers Versailles a touch demure. Wrong palace, of course: Lilibet’s takes its name from the late Queen, born at this address in a house lost before the war. Its central heating wouldn’t have been a patch on what’s here now, which will accommodate the mini skirt in the depths of midwinter.
The thing with places such as this — and there are countless around the corner in Berkeley Square, which I detest — is that the food is always crap, as though being underwhelmed and unchallenged were a selling point. But founder Ross Shonhan, who reportedly battled like a bastard to get it off the ground, didn’t want that, instead hoping for “a classic kind of restaurant”. He’s gone and done it: Lilibet’s, instant classic.
How? Not rocket science: food is superb, the wine list has footholds for normals (glasses from £9.50, lots of carafes to keep prices down), and it’s terrific fun. Interesting, too: when did gurnard, garfish and sea cucumber last appear on a menu in W1? Or, outside Portugal, was a steak sandwich offered for pudding? A must, by the way.
There wasn’t a dud. Sweet éclairs came puffed with anchovy parfait and topped with studs of salty anchovy; tuna arrived in thick slices, lazing in a red pepper gazpacho, heat giving way to tartness. Set down was a seafood platter, described on the menu as “petite”. Were it a dating app, you’d complain about catfishing. It was an overflowing triumph of oysters and mussels and curls of sea bream, of crab tartlets as bright and cheering as a birthday morning, and deep-fried prawn heads. “I’m going to eat till I’m sick,” said Twiggy, for whom they’ve named an off-menu drink. She’s only marrying me for perks like these? You don’t say.
Set down was a seafood platter, described on the menu as “petite”. Were it a dating app, you’d complain about catfishing
Fried crab thermidor was as pornographically good as it sounds, a puck of breadcrumbs with crab meat coddled by the traditional, sheikh-rich sauce of wine and cream. By contrast, ricotta agnolotti seemed a palate cleanser: cut with lemon and sage, the pasta cooked moments before, our table disappeared it in the time it took to pour wine. I had my revenge by nabbing scallops from the grill, perfect in a murky-looking seaweed butter whose ugliness belied the beauty of its flavour.
They do fish “triptych”, as in paintings: raw, grilled and a soup cooked to order. Four of us tore through gurnard; I’d come back and have it for lunch, between two, with a bottle of Burgundy. Or maybe three portions of the mash, where the potato arrives in a rockpool of shellfish bisque and lobster. Have I ever eaten anything better? I couldn’t swear to it. I wish I had endless space to go on about this place, in detail so laborious it might be used for torture. Count yourself lucky. Look, I’m not really recommending you go, I’m insisting. No offence.
17 Bruton Street, W1. Meal for two about £220; lilibetsrestaurant.com
