Scott’s: No flash and fireworks, just the way their celebrity regulars like it

This celebrity favourite is usually humming along busily, with eyes torn between the famous faces in the room and the magnificent, glittering display of seafood
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David Ellis @dvh_ellis31 January 2018

People wear their money individually: some gold plate their Lamborghini, others prefer to discreetly race by in a Tesla. Restaurants are the same: Sexy Fish has bronze mermaids by Damien Hirst on the bar, while Scott’s quietly gets on with serving the best dover sole in London. Funny they have the same owner.

Its legacy of oysters and champagne dates back to around 1851, though it moved to its present Mount Street almost 120 years later, where it drew actors, film stars and taught Ian Fleming the proper way to mix a Martini. A slow decline took hold and the nineties weren’t kind, but Caprice Holdings stepped in, saved the place, and since late 2006, it’s been the celebrity regular. Everybody has eaten here: presidents and pop stars, A-listers and newly minted chancers. Got a book to plug? New film coming out? Want to do the PR without having to actually speak to journalists (yuck!)? Head to the terrace, let the paparazzi pics do the job.

Built around a marble topped bar, the dining room – with its polished up wood, like that of the deck on an old world yacht – is usually humming along busily, with eyes torn between the famous faces in the room and the magnificent, glittering display of seafood. There is atmosphere here, a sense of excitement, and the seafood is first rate: lobster, scallops, langoustines and prawns all muddled together and splashed with garlic butter is a sharing dish to keep marriages together. Deep-fried haddock with mushy peas is £20 – twenty pounds! – but it does rather belittle its competition.

It is a regulars kind of restaurant, somewhere where a monied crowd enjoy being known, appreciated, somewhere they can walk in and a first drink arrives unbidden, mixed just the way they like it. It's true that if you're not a name, the service is sometimes a little shaky, but hey, that's all part of its charm. Scott's is all charm, really: it's easy going, low-key, casual in its own upmarket way. That is what Scott’s has built its world on: do not expect flash and fireworks and all of that. After all, there's Sexy Fish for that.

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