Cut, W1 - review

1/2
10 April 2012

One of my companions for dinner at Wolfgang Puck's newly opened restaurant was Latvian restaurateur Martins Ritins.

At the Soho Food Feast held this summer, Martins - president of the Slow Food movement in Latvia and Eastern European judge for The World's 50 Best Restaurants - had topped the bids for a meal with me "on the job". All the money raised went to support the estimable Soho Parish School, including its commitment to wholesome homemade food for the children.

Anita Coppins, school cook and parent of two former pupils, wrote to say: "My 150 bunnies at school can now carry on eating healthy school lunches." Aaah. I was so pleased and so grateful to Martins - who runs Vincents restaurant in Riga - for his contribution. Equally thrilling was his remark as we sat down that he would have done such a thing for only two people: me, obviously, "and Marianne Faithfull". I can't remember when I've been more flattered.

But enough about me. Let's get back to Wolfgang and this steak restaurant CUT, which originated in Beverly Hills and now also trades in Las Vegas and Singapore. Puck is perhaps best known for his involvement in the fashionable Ma Maison in LA (where, to get back to me for a minute, I was once picked up by a Hollywood lawyer who offered to sue for no fee the person who had caused the scar then apparent on my face), Spago in Beverly Hills, Las Vegas, Maui and Beaver Creek, Colorado, and Chinois on Main in Santa Monica. The Austrian-born chef is a catering phenomenon. Best go to his website to appreciate the length and breadth of his empire.

Nothing was being left to chance at CUT, his first European venture since he finished training as a chef in France at the age of 24. Entering the
premises, now a hotel in The Dorchester Collection, was like getting off a plane to be met by a delegation from a country populated by front of-house staff. Expressions of pleasure at meeting us and exhortations to a wonderful evening wafted us to our seats on a banquette so soft and deep that to eat we had to perch on the edge.

A potential problem with a surfeit of staff is that it can spoil efficiency. Only one glass was brought for champagne - when we had asked for three - and now, scrutinising the bill, I see that we were charged for four - at £16 a glass.

The heart of the dinner menu is steak - from the US, England, Australia and Chile. Cuts of meat wrapped in black napkins were brought out for inspection. Some people, I am sure, are fascinated by seeing lumps of flesh wrapped in swaddling clothes and like exclaiming over their marbling and seaming and their sweet little dimples, but I am not one of them.

Martins chose rib-eye steak, USDA Prime Black Angus beef from Kansas, aged 35 days at £42 for 14oz. Reg went for New York sirloin from Casterbridge Angus in Devon, aged for 28 days at £27 for 10oz.

The steaks are billed as being grilled over hardwood and charcoal and then finished under a 650-degree broiler. They are then obviously dutifully rested as they arrive at the table with no scent and no sizzle. Advertising agencies used to say "you sell the sizzle not the sausage" and there was something man-in-a-pinny-fearlessly-confronting-elemental-fire lacking in these otherwise tender and reasonably flavourful slabs of meat.

From the list entitled Add to the Cuts, wild mushrooms at £9 and bone marrow at £6 took the prices skywards - and that was before Cavatappi pasta "Mac & Cheese" at £5.50 and baby spinach with garlic at £4.50 were chosen from On the Side.

Cuts are a bit on our minds at the moment and these prices seem egregious even given glitzy décor, loud Seventies pop music and swarms of staff. And wait until you see the wine list.

Other parts of the long, imaginative menu delivered some treats, namely the first courses of Big Eye tuna tartare, wasabi aïoli, ginger, Togarashi crisps, Tosa soy, a beautifully composed salad of butter lettuce, avocado, Shropshire blue cheese with a champagne herb vinaigrette, and a main course of spiced Wagyu beef short ribs slow-cooked with Indian spices for eight hours.

Because I associate the US with indulgent breakfasts I returned the next day for buttermilk pancakes, whipped maple butter and seasonal berries with a sage and black pepper pork sausage on the side. The pancakes were pillowy and lovely, although their dusting with icing sugar made me push the accompanying jug of maple syrup away.

A table by the window on the morning of a sunny day (which it was) with a view of the park is one way of using this friendly restaurant, where I would say "Cut and come again."

Cut
45 Park Lane, W1

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