Yahoo Finance Classics Revisited: Kettner's Townhouse
Legend has it that Auguste Kettner, who opened this Soho landmark in 1867, was the private chef of the Emperor Napoleon III.
The story of this proto Escoffier who had cooked at the French court conjures up fabulous images of decadent feasts in gilded Second Empire interiors – until you remember that Napoleon III ended his days not on the Champs Elysées but in Chislehurst.
Napoleon Bonaparte was banished to St Helena; Napoleon III was exiled to suburbia. I’m not sure which is the crueller punishment.
Still, the sheen of royalty, however humdrum the reality, was enough to ensure patronage from Oscar Wilde and Edward VII, who is rumoured to have had a tunnel built between Kettner’s and the Palace Theatre so he could conduct his affair with Lillie Langtry during the intervals. Well, it beats flicking through the programme.
Its last heyday was the fin de siècle of the 20th century, when it was a posh Pizza Express and treasured forever as the place where the dough ball was unveiled.
Now it has been closed for a year, refurbished and re-launched by Soho House, who have added a suffix of ‘Townhouse’ to bring Kettner’s into line with Dean Street Townhouse a block away.
Like Dean Street, Kettner’s now has 30 or so bedrooms upstairs; downstairs, the famous Champagne Bar remains.
Although, when I visit, it is only open for hotel guests, prompting the group in front of me to protest "but we’re members of Soho House Istanbul!", which must pass for ‘do you know who I am?’ on the Bosporus. (By the way, if you ever have the chance to visit Soho House Istanbul, grab it: it’s a bobby dazzler of neo-Byzantine splendour.)
The hotel element means that Kettner’s is now open for breakfast, with millennial-bait almond butter toast and matcha shakes alongside more indulgent dishes such as lobster royale and scrambled duck eggs that seem more in keeping with the spirit of the place.
But while the interior designers have done the original fittings proud – the frou-frou plaster mouldings will induce a rush of nostalgia in anyone who had a first date here over a Sloppy Giuseppe – the cooking isn’t yet quite fit for an emperor.
Omelette Arnold Bennett should be a fluffy mound of egg and Finnan haddock enriched with béchamel, hollandaise, cheese and cream into a yellow cloud of artery-clogging bliss.
Here, it was simply a plain-tasting flat omelette garnished with smoked eel and a large blob of what may as well have been mayonnaise. The only Bennett that sprang to mind was Gordon.
Roast Banham chicken fared little better, with a flavour overwhelmed by truffle; there’s not much point banging on about the provenance of ingredients if you can’t actually taste the quality of what you’re eating.
The best things I tried were starters and small plates. The bread is warm and the butter soft. Gorgeous Gruyère gougères were heaped with the cheese that was missing from the omelette.
A French onion tart had a dark heart of caramelised goo held in a ruff of buttery pastry, and Devon crab with celeriac remoulade and russet apple combined sweet delicacy with the sort of keen sharpness that makes you think of orchards on frosty autumn mornings.
My advice? Skip the restaurant and sit in the adjacent piano bar. You can graze on small plates, knock back a bracingly chilly martini in a gold-rimmed coupe glass, order a Grasshopper instead of pudding and soak up the spot-on Soho House vibe without having to fork out for membership. The dining room, alas, feels like being exiled to suburbia.
WHO TO TAKE: Your visiting nephew or niece – they’ll be impressed but not intimidated
WHAT TO ORDER: Go big on small plates and starters
Kettner’s Townhouse, 29 Romilly Street, London, W1D 5HP; kettnerstownhouse.com
