The Goring Hotel, near Buckingham Palace, has plodded on majestically for the past 109 years without doing anything as gauche as touting a new restaurant. The arrival of Siren, a fish restaurant by the Cornish chef Nathan Outlaw, was therefore something of a surprise. Surely this would only attract, well, the public? (Please read “the public” in the manner of Downton Abbey’s dowager countess discovering “the weekend”.)
Forgive my pearl-clutching, but the Goring has enjoyed a century of discreetly hosting minor aristocrats, anglophile Manhattan elite and royal wedding guest overspill. Then, bang, Nathan Outlaw is here. Him off the telly with a name that suggests he ought to be waving a cutlass in the 4pm pirate show at the Treasure Island Hotel in Las Vegas.
But worry not, upholders of British standards, the Goring post-Outlaw is still delightfully quaint. On a Friday afternoon, the bar and drawing rooms are still a hive to retired sergeant majors in nipple-waisted chinos and drinking Tom Collinses, genteel tourists pondering the cream-before-jam debate, and staff in top hats, velour jackets and fancy brooches, as well as people like me: one very good gimlet down by 1pm, and keen to know if this throttlingly expensive collaboration is just another sterile hotel space to avoid.
Because that’s the rub with almost all “fancy incoming chef” versus “nosebleedingly expensive hotel” square-offs: they’re usually bloody dull. In fact, when I go to hell – restaurant critics do not enter heaven – my eternity will be to endure an endless tasting menu while trapped in a glass-fronted room adjoining a fancy hotel foyer. My room mates will be moneyed, jetlagged diners who long for a house burger but were fooled into ordering velouté of endive avec doe cheek confit.
But I’m pleased to inform you that hell is certainly not Siren. It is entirely the opposite. Outlaw’s rugged charm is the perfect foil to the Goring’s dainty aloofness. They go together like fish and chips – albeit here that means turbot at £42 a piece and chips that are triple-cooked, skin-on spuds with garlic and rosemary.
Siren’s menu eschews jargon or trend, but still retains a sparkle. You will be fed by the end of your meal. Feasibly thoroughly skint, too, but fed nonetheless. Expect crisp oysters and thick slabs of cuttlefish black pudding. Dover sole is served with a clotted cream sauce. Hake comes battered. There’s dry-aged steak with tarragon butter.
Alongside the daily menu, a silver tray of recently departed fish will be delivered to your table for you to behold and pick from. If you’re vegan, vegetarian, allergic or just delicate, tell them: the staff are amazing. They will solve any dining woes.
Proceedings begin with a mini-loaf of St John bread with glorious seaweed butter and a plentiful bowl of thick, pink and smoky cod’s roe. This, armed with a cold bottle of 2018 Domaine du Peras sauvignon blanc, would have been a damned good lunch in its own right. Especially because the garden-facing dining room is possibly – no, hesitation be damned – definitely London’s prettiest restaurant-with-a-view of the year. If you’re painfully well-organised, book now for Valentine’s 2020. The person will marry you. Even if they don’t especially like you.
Siren is an open-fronted space, on dry days at least, that gazes out on a quintessential British country-house lawn. The room is filled with beautiful, green, leafy-cushioned chairs, with notes of terracotta, rich browns and ermine blues. Glass lobsters loom from the ceiling while matching sea anenomes perch on the tables.
We ate a delicate lobster tart that was something of a work of art, sturdy enough to contain a lot of meat and a tower of fresh pea shoots, yet deft and flyaway, too. A starter of cured monkfish was a subtle affair, ornately arranged with fresh ginger, fennel and yoghurt. The crisp oysters were a punchier option, layered with cabbage and served with an oyster-infused “salad cream”.
Turbot on the bone was perfectly judged, with a vibrant, sunrise-coloured seaweed hollandaise and a slice of al dente, chargrilled fennel. A 910g sea bass arrived partially skinned, yet still very much owning a skeleton, and its face stared plaintively up at Charles as he deboned and demolished it.
Puddings are exquisite, too; in fact, for me, they were the stars of the show, even though they begin at 12 quid for ice-cream. A heroically gorgeous strawberry tart with a Jenga-pile of fresh fruit and a scoop of yoghurt sorbet was bliss. The raspberry choux bun is a decadent heffalump of a dessert, teeming with plump berries and equipped with a jug of dark chocolate sauce. A glass of sweet Uroulat jurançon took the edge off the alarming bill. Siren lured me in and seduced me. Things got very rocky.
• Siren The Goring Hotel, 15 Beeston Place, London SW1, 020-7396 9000. Open all week, lunch noon-2.15pm, dinner 5.30-10.15pm (9.45pm Sun-Thurs). From about £65 a head, plus drinks and service.
Food 8/10
Atmosphere 9/10
Service 10/10
