When I first visited Mayfair’s Silva restaurant for the Arbuturian last year, I found it a pleasant but ever so slightly underwhelming experience. It certainly had the bones of greatness in its stylishly decorated room, top-notch service and slinkily exclusive feel – a members’ club that was open to anyone – but there was something not quite there when it came to the food and cocktails, I thought; a sense that the restaurant was aspiring to something at the highest end that it couldn’t quite attain.
Well, there has now been significant change, in the arrival of the excellent Charlie Dilworth as the new head chef, and I am very happy and relieved to report that Silva has now achieved its considerable potential in some style. Everything that it was doing well in the first place, from the warm but never sycophantic service to the well-styled room, is still just as good, if not better, than it was in the first place, but thanks to Dilworth’s splendid cooking and a bar offering that has been refreshed and rethought in the greatest of style, this now joins the ranks of the finest restaurants in central London.
We began with a couple of perfectly presented and served cocktails, the ‘Olivo’, an olive oil-infused martini for me and a Fig Martini for my chum Fergus, accompanied by a perfectly judged snack of whipped feta, sobrassada and flatbread. It’s delicious, moreish and a real insight into Dilworth’s impressive but not at all flashy technique, but it’s swiftly outdone by the starters proper, a truly wonderful combination of native lobster with carrot, smoked garlic and cucumber served within its own bisque and, perhaps even better, my companion’s prawn and scallop raviolo served within an unctuous langoustine bisque. We guard our own dishes greedily, like trolls hording treasure: they are too good to share.
This cannot be said of the piece-de-resistance, however, a main course of Marango Costaza sirloin steak, which comes as a whopping portion – a whole kilogram! – but is served and marbled to perfection, meaning that even though it’s a vast amount of meat, we manage to polish off just about all of it between us, making appreciative noises all the time, as we must.
It comes with a dazzling array of sides including crispy new potatoes with herb salt (just don’t call them chips, OK?), heritage tomatoes with picked shallots and a smashed potato salad with pancetta. The last is perhaps the only thing that is de trop, but the wine that we’re recommended to go with the steak, a scrumptious bottle of Los Frailes Caliza from Alicante, is a delight that cuts through all the fattiness and richness with aplomb.
Dessert? Dessert. Fergus is hors de combat by this point and contents himself with a couple of scoops of ice cream, the chocolate and strawberry sorbet, but your correspondent is made of sterner, or at least more determined, stuff, and so is enraptured by the rhubarb and custard tart with stem ginger ice cream, which proves to be a marvel. And then, two hours or so after we’ve first walked into Silva, it’s time to leave, with honour more than satisfied. This was once a pleasant place to dine, with plenty of potential; now, that potential has been fully realised and it’s unmissable.
Silva, 26-28 Bruton Pl, London W1J 6NG. For more information, and for bookings, please visit www.silvarestaurant.co.uk.
