Club Chinois at Park Chinois, bar review: Opulent, indulgent, bizarre, a must

Alan Yau's grand Mayfair venture is using its downstairs space for a bar. It's all a bit ridiculous, and a bit wonderful, and a bit confusing, says David Ellis
Pure indulgence: Club Chinois, downstairs at Park Chinois
David Ellis @dvh_ellis24 November 2017

What they say: Alan Yau – the man behind Michelin-starred Hakkasan and Yauatcha, Soho’s Duck and Rice and, yes, Wagamama – is bringing back the dinner-dance experience of the ‘30s, and Park Chinois prides itself on the elegance and glamour of the era, with service to match. Club Chinois sits downstairs, and where upstairs has live jazz, downstairs has more of a laid-back, modern vibe, with DJs spinning into the dark of the night.

What we say: Renovation of the site cost, apparently, something in the region of £16million. And the news is: £16million is enough to effectively buy a time-machine. Stepping in from the Bentley-infested Berkeley St, Park Chinois is a touch overwhelming: the contrast is stark, though charming. It is old-world glitz from a different time. Staff shimmer. There are whispers.

Through to the restaurant and £16million has bought not only a time machine but the Narnia wardrobe: we are no longer in London but somewhere else completely. A grand Chinese saloon? Or perhaps just a film set? The room is decadent and luxurious, yes; authentic, no. Is it glorious or just gloriously tacky? The jury's still out.

Upstairs is calm, there is a sense of occasion and the live jazz is surprisingly excellent, and not at all the Starbucks-fodder one might dread. Downstairs is glitzier, darker, louder, shinier, and DJs pump a kind of elevator-music-on-steroids. Still, despite this, it is undoubtedly sexy, feeling a little like a hidden secret. It comes as a surprise after upstairs, but is welcome too: if you’re being civilised upstairs, downstairs is the place to unravel over a few cocktails.

Opulent: Club Chinois is a little ridiculous, which is part of its charm

Good for: A date, especially if you can get away without paying. Have a light supper: their famous Duck de Chine is exquisite, cooked rare and lying under a blanket of melted fat, all flavour, the skin polished and shining like dark amber. It is a must, though I confess that while the bird is elegant, my eating of it was not – hoisin sauce everywhere.

Club Chinois is younger than upstairs, and fun, and you could bring friends. Start relaxed and then work down the list: the drinks are very good and the place is such a curiosity, teetering on the edge of ridiculousness, that is compelling, and if you stayed late into the night, your evening would feel so wonderfully debauched, and in the morning you would feel crumpled and victorious.

Craft: the cocktails are made with care

Order: Hard to go wrong with wine, the list is uniformly excellent. Cocktails-wise, from the pre-dinner aperitifs, the armagnac – a very decent 8-year-old VSOP, equivalent to an XO cognac – mixed with a little Cocchi Americano, a dash of bitters and tonic water, is fresh and drinks long. It is refreshing and has a suitably old-fashioned elegance to it.

The vodka Collins has been re-thought cleverly, with marmalade vodka, Floc de Gascogne Blanc, yuzu, elderflower cordial, ginger, lemon, peach bitters and topped up with soda water. The truth of it is that they could’ve served a very straight, traditional vodka Collins and no-one would have noticed, or minded: that they bothered to re-engineer the drink and arguably improve upon it is heartening, or, if you like, a little proof that they care about their product, and not just profits. The same can be said of their interesting take on the Last Word, which has no gin, instead running with the upmarket Marca Negra mezcal, maraschino liquer, bartenders secret ingredient Suze Saveur D’Autrefois, lime and chartreuse foam. There’s still space to showboat, though: the Vieux Carre and East India are needlessly expensive at around £30 a drink: sure, they’ve rare brandy in them, but this is a cocktail – subtle flavours are folded in and mixed away.

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By the way: Order with a promise to yourself that your bank statements will go unchecked. That might rather ruin all the fun. The impression of money is all around: it is there in the golden swan heads in the bathroom – something like buying a Lamborghini, gold-plating it, and using it for a school run – and it is there in some of the people: women shaped like dollar signs, men with stomachs buldging like euros.

Still, while I remember the drinks all being £18 – bloody expensive, but not the worst in Mayfair – actually, there are cocktails for a far more reasonable £14 - 15, and even a few at £12. Just about as high end as it goes, but you could pop in for a quick one and not regret it too heavily. And though it’s not really the place for that, it’s nice to know it’s possible to rub shoulders for an evening with the kind of people who send water back because it’s not room temperature. It is nothing if not an experience.

Follow David Ellis on Twitter @dvh_ellis

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