Twenty-two years in, the trio behind Bellamy’s are still running Mayfair’s most convincing members’ club, minus the membership fee…
Among the restaurants on Bruton Place, the cobbled mews behind Berkeley Square that keeps popping up in news cycles with the latest must-visit on the capital’s dining scene, there is one that can likely lay claim to being the original. Behind an unobtrusive red awning, Bellamy’s has all the appearances of somewhere that has been simply getting on with things long before the mews landed on the map – and to those who know it, it’s been a go-to since its opening in 2004.
The trio that run it have been there since day one, and they have form. More than form, in fact, they hail from perhaps London’s definitive social haunt. Gavin Rankin, once managing director of the Annabel’s Group; chef Stéphane Pacoud, formerly Annabel’s second chef; and manager Luigi Burgio, who cut his teeth behind the bar, at Annabel’s. Between them, they know precisely how to make a dining room feel like somewhere you belong.
In that time Bellamy’s has become something of an institution itself, up there with the likes of Wilton’s, Rules and Scott’s. But it’s more than that, it’s a private members club – without the fees. You might hear that a lot, but Bellamy’s have earned it. The staff know the regulars not just by name or favourite dish, but their diaries, their holidays, their children’s school grades. And those ‘regulars’ number in their hundreds; some arrive weekly, others for special occasions.
It’s named after Evelyn Waugh’s eponymous club – in Sword of Honour, to the bibliophiles among you – though the restaurant’s French regulars have their own reading; Guy de Maupassant’s Bel Ami, the ‘good friend’, and the pun rather writes itself. In the UK, our hospitality industry is often let down by the service; it can be indifferent, or worse, obsequious. Bellamy’s team, to a person, are warm, friendly without being familiar, and blessed with memories like elephants. There’s not a notebook in sight. Little wonder it holds Tatler Magazine’s Most Civilised Restaurant Award. You can keep your AA rosettes and your Michelin stars; when it comes to accolades, we doff our cap to Tatler.
It may be lunchtime, but in the spirit of Waugh I can’t not try their martini. And here, too, the bar knows what it’s doing. ‘How would you like it, sir?’ the waiter asks. Ooh, filthy, please, I jest. ‘Very good, sir,’ he nods, insouciantly, with a flicker of a smile. It arrives cold enough to fog the glass, with more brine than vermouth, and a skewer of olives; exactly the sort of drink Waugh’s own characters would have sunk before disgracing themselves.
The menu reads like a litany of bistro staples, but that’s doing it a disservice. There’s a curious colour-coding; burgundy dishes are the house classics – they eschew ‘signature’ – of which there’d be rioting in the streets if they were ever removed; green for ‘vegetarien’, naturally, as are the vegetables, and a section simply marked ‘caviar’. The ‘table d’hote’ are the specials, changing weekly and pared down to a simple choice, enticing newbies and providing variety for regulars alike. And at £38 for two courses, extraordinary value if one doesn’t wish to go a la carte.
I was dining with my friend Hugh, one of those ‘regulars’, who’d clearly been round the menu a few times, practically steering the dish according to my mood and taste. This being my first time, however, I had to go for the classics. The benefit of being with someone who’s been coming here almost since it opened, is that you get the insight without the hard sell; the fish fingers ‘are as they should be’, the eel mousse is an ‘acquired taste’, if you’re a fan, the iced lobster souffle ‘is theirs alone, something they’re known for’. On that basis, how can I not try it.
The starters arrive within minutes, and there’s truth in the recommendation. The lobster is a sleight of hand that would rival Escoffier; an inch proud of the ramekin, it’s the kind of dish that used to separate the serious kitchens from the pretenders, and Bellamy’s still treats it as such. Served with slivers of brittle white toast, it becomes a textural marvel; at once cold, silken, crisp. I’ve had souffles and mousses aplenty but this is one I’d now know blind, in a single mouthful, as Bellamy’s and nowhere else.
Then there are the mains, to which Hugh advises two; the steak tartare – is it mixed tableside? I ask. “It is not, but it is made as intended” – and the Dover sole is the definitive. He does, however, point out one key thing; Bellamy’s is about the dish itself, not the veneer. “It’s hard,” he tells me, “to present white food on a white plate and make it look appealing…” I’m sold to the challenge, and sure enough, slivers of sole and a quintet of barrelled vapeur potatoes, dusted with parsley, appear on the plate like a Rothko.
It’s a smoothly-oiled machine, quick, without being rushed. Which accounts for why there were suited businessmen who arrived after our starter, and left before we had dessert. Equally, the table on the opposite side was clearly a reunion, there for the long haul. For our part, it’s a casual catch-up, and long overdue, making the venue a fitting choice; relaxed, yet meaningful.
We conclude with desserts; Marina’s chocolate cake – a recipe from Stéphane’s grandmother, which will remain a secret to the grave – along with Chantilly, and Hugh goes for the Île Flottante, a cumulonimbus of a meringue on a lake of crème anglaise. They are, on sight, simple dishes – on a white canvas, again – but as with the others, there is no distraction visually, this is all about the taste.
By the time coffee arrives, the reunion table is still going strong, the suits have been replaced by a young couple, and nobody has once glanced our way to hurry us out. It’s a particular kind of hospitality that can’t be bought with a single booking, only earned over the one before it, and the one before that. Bellamy’s has a rare knack for getting it right, whatever you’re in the mood for – which is precisely why, when nobody can agree where to go, someone says its name and the argument’s over. And it might just well become my ‘club’, to boot.
Bellamy’s, 18/18a Bruton Place, London W1J 6LY. For more information, including details about its history and its famed oyster bar, as well as the ‘table d’hote’ menu, please visit www.bellamysrestaurant.co.uk.
