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Design Luxury People Restaurants

Ignite Group + Senkai Restaurant Piccadilly London

Orient Impress

In the Roaring Twenties, architect Sir Reginald Blomfield completed the part of John Nash’s masterplan for Regent Street adjoining Piccadilly Circus. Known as The Quadrant, the lower floors are punctuated by round arched windows set between rusticated piers. The ground floor rectangular portions of the windows serve shopfronts but the more observant passerby will note that a mezzanine level is lit by the half moon portions above. These lunette windows illuminate another world, far removed from the humdrum of shoppers and workers below. Walk under Sir Reginald’s Doric columned miniature boulevard in the sky, enter an elegant doorway on a side lane, ascend a winding flight of stairs, and beyond lies Senkai.

This is the most recent addition to the Ignite Group, the 1998 brainchild of entrepreneurs Matt Hermer and Paul Deeming. Ignite’s portfolio also includes Boujis private members’ club and Bumpkin bar and restaurant, both in South Kensington. And who did we recently see enjoying Marlborough Lights on the Old Brompton Road terrace of Bumpkin? Why, Prince Harry and his girlfriend Chelsy Davy! Opened in September 2011, Senkai is the latest Japanese themed restaurant to hit London’s West End. A DJ plays on Thursday and Saturday nights to attract a young hip crowd. Low ceilings, as mezzanines tend to have, accentuate the intimate clubby ambience.

Matt says, “Modern Japanese restaurants are a true trend in London. Through my travels, the Orient has been a great inspiration so it made sense as a next step for Ignite. We wanted to reduce the formality of Japanese restaurants with Senkai. We serve food in the lounge where a range of fabulous cocktails are mixed to complement the food.”

The long low dining room (125 covers) is punctuated at one end by a cocktail lounge (30 covers) and at the other by a circular marble raw seafood bar (20 covers). A mix of relaxing seating includes red banquettes, flower shaped stools by Pierre Paulin and Tosai lounge chairs made on the Japanese island of Hokkaido. Solid sycamore dining tables are by Benchmark. Bronze de Gournay hand painted wallpaper sets the scene. The ceiling is enlivened by illusory domes with subliminal lighting; Moooi Random LED floor lights throw patterns across the woven flooring. A 1961 floor light from Miguel Milá and a Tripode floor lamp from Santa and Cole add further interest. Interior design was by Christopher Prain, Head of Creative Design at Christopher Chanond, with lighting and furniture mostly supplied by Conran Contracts. Contrast and colour is the dual theme of the decoration and, as will be revealed, out the food. The Executive Chef is Tim Tolley, formerly of Plateau restaurant in Canary Wharf.

In keeping with Ignite Group’s policy on ethical food sourcing, at least three quarters of the fish on the menu is sourced from British day boats or organic farms. The remaining fish is sourced from sustainable worldwide suppliers including yellowtail kingfish from Australia and cobia from Vietnam. Game on the menu is a reminder this is England. edible works of art, polychromatic feasts for the eyes and mouth, arrive on simple white plates and bowls. Highlights from the Autumn Taster Menu include Chef’s Sashimi (yellowtail, salmon, sea bass, sea bream and scallops) and Curried Cabbage Gyoza (dumplings). Crab and Langoustine Ceviche (with mung bean noodles), a Toasted Day Boat (white fish tartare with sesame) and Cobia Umeboshi Samphire are other specialities. Warm dark Chocolate Fondant is served with colourful ice cream (green tea, cherry and vanilla flavoured) perched on a block of ice. Game on the menu (grouse, duck and quail) is a reminder that this Far East haven is in fact in England. The service is seamless and rather aesthetically pleasing. Some fine sommelier steering too.

Like the Roaring Twenties, Senkai revels in the social, artistic and multicultural dynamism of the English capital. Dance music may have replaced jazz and models dine here instead of flappers, but the mood behind Sir Reginald’s sober neoclassical façade is still chilled and decadent. The city has turned full circle. And that was how the review ended 13 years ago.

Alas Senkai didn’t make it to the New Roaring Twenties. Six months after our review, the restaurant went into liquidation. It’s strange as the Ignite Group were successful across a range of ventures, the interior was top notch, the food top quality and the service top drawer. The location, despite being a sushi roll’s throw from Piccadilly Circus is discreet (that side lane and mezzanine) but Hawksmoor steak restaurant has been doing well since November 2012 in the same place and space.

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Architects Architecture Art Country Houses Design Hotels Luxury People Restaurants

Von Essen Hotels + Cliveden House Hotel Berkshire

The Conservative Party

At one time they owned some of the best hotels in Britain. The portfolio of the two Andrews – Messrs Davis and Onraet embraced 30 odd mostly historic hotels included Ston Easton Park in Bath, Sharrow Bay in Cumbria, and most famously of all Cliveden in Berkshire. They knew how to throw a good party – we didn’t need an excuse to jive away an evening at their stuccoed Belgravia mansion. The Sunday Times restaurant critic Michael Winner was a close friend; Raine Countess Spencer was too. You never knew who you’d share a bottle of Moët with by the indoor basement swimming pool.

So when they suggested we visit Cliveden, there was only one response: when can we go? It was the heady summer of 2010 when we went south to Berkshire’s best. Our review for Luxury Travel Magazine at the time contained the prescient line, “Notoriety and Cliveden go hand in hand.” Sadly, little did we know that two years after our visit Von Essen would go out of business. A certain Meghan Markle and her mother would later spend the night before her wedding to Prince Harry at Cliveden. The National Trust continues to own the grounds while the hotel has changed hands several times since.

Another forte of the two Andrews was PR. Von Essen sponsored The Sunday Times’ Rich List and regularly appeared in the glossies. An article predating their tenure was written by Jo Newson and Dorothy Bosomworth in Traditional Interior Decoration, February / March 1988. They state, “Country house hotels are a relatively recent phenomenon. They have sprung up with a demand for something more than comfort: a wider appreciation of style without streamlining, and a recognition of the value of old buildings in our brave new world. Cliveden is one of the most recent – and important – examples.”

Here goes. At a bend in the Thames a house has twice risen from the ashes: welcome to Cliveden. Have you ever stayed at an historic hotel and yearned to learn more about its past? Von Essen Hotels have the answer. Throughout 2010 they are rolling out Heritage Concierges at all their properties. Guests can discover the history of the hotel they are staying at through a dedicated member of staff. Tours are free but must be booked upon arrival. First to offer this innovative concept is Cliveden (drop your E’s to pronounce “Cliv’d’n”) in Berkshire.

And what a task. Cliveden has been the scene of riotous living by the rich and infamous for almost three and a half centuries. Spies, call girls, billionaires, dukes and queens have all partied hard here. The name is so synonymous with presidential league entertaining that even the Sugar King Julio Lobo referred to his bolthole for holding court in Havana as the “Cliveden of Cuba”. But Michael Chaloner, Cliveden’s Heritage Concierge, is well up to the job. He jokes that he’s been at the hotel forever. Michael explains, “Surprisingly the house has never been the principal seat of any of its owners. It’s always been a holiday home if somewhat on a grand scale. When it was converted to a hotel in 1985 barely any changes needed to be made.” Some things really haven’t changed. Sue Crawley, Hotel Manager – actually the staff never refer to “hotel” but rather “house” – comments, “All the food still comes up on trays from the cellar kitchen. This involves navigating four twists of the narrow staircase!”

The present house is an impossibly palatial affair erected in 1852 to the design of Sir Charles Barry for the 2nd Duke of Sutherland. This starchitect practised his penchant for all things Italianate a decade earlier at the Reform Club on Pall Mall, London, before being let loose at Cliveden. It’s hard not to feel important, sitting on plumped up cushions in the Great Hall under the disdainful eye of Lady Astor in a Sargent portrait, while on the other side of the tall sash windows a gaggle of National Trust tourists gawk and traipse past (Von Essen lease the building from The National Trust).

Each of the 39 bedrooms is individually decorated and named after someone connected to the house, from the Tudorbethan panelling of the Mountbatten Room to the sloping ceilings of the Prince Albert Room. In the Asquith Room you can lie back in the bath and watch the limos pulling up in the forecourt three storeys below. Thankfully there’s not a modern extension in sight. Fancy a fourposter bed? No problem, try the Chinese Room. A coronet bed? That will be the Sutherland Suite. A polonaise bed? Not sure, but there’s probably one somewhere. Cliveden doesn’t do second class. No wonder Queen Victoria stayed here for six weeks.

Henry Ford, Franklin Roosevelt and George Bernard Shaw have also enjoyed stints at Cliveden. In 1893 the hideously wealthy American tycoon William Astor, who’d bought the house 13 years earlier for a staggering $1.25 million, presented it to his son as a wedding gift. Halcyon days beckoned as Astor junior and his glamorous wife Nancy hosted society. The government of the day was broke (sounds familiar?) and so ministers were only too glad to meet visiting dignitaries at Cliveden. But it is the fall of a later government that keeps Michael’s tour especially lively. Almost half a century ago, on a balmy Saturday evening in midsummer the Secretary of State for War Jack Profumo clapped eyes on Christine Keeler, a 19 year old demimondaine, larking round the outdoor swimming pool. The rest is history as immortalised in the 1989 film Scandal starring John Hurt, Ian McKellen and Joanne Whalley.

“Lord Astor had persistent backache,” says Michael, “so he allowed his osteopath Stephen Ward use of Spring Cottage on the estate as payment in kind. That fateful evening the party staying at Spring Cottage included Ward’s acquaintance Christine Keeler and Yevgeny Ivanov, a Soviet assistant attaché who was also a spy. Meanwhile Profumo and his wife, the beautiful Northern Irish actress Valerie Hobson, were guests of the Astors. After dinner they strolled out of the house to the pool area. Profumo in a dinner jacket; Keeler emerging from the pool in a dripping towel. Their clandestine affair began the following day. When Keeler sold her story to a tabloid it was revealed she’d been sleeping with both Profumo and Ivanov at the same time.” A case of Reds in the beds.

Jack Profumo baldly denied any impropriety in his relationship with Christine Keeler in a statement to the House of Commons. “Well he would, wouldn’t he?” tartly snapped Mandy Rice-Davies, Christine’s best buddy and co accused of prostitution, later at the subsequent court case. He finally confessed although not before suing Paris Match and Italian magazine Il Tempo for libel. Stephen Ward was tried on trumped up charges relating to immoral earnings and committed suicide before the case concluded. Jack’s career lay in tatters and the furore brought down the then Conservative government in 1964. The swimming pool is now Grade I Listed in its own right.

Notoriety and Cliveden go hand in hand. Its first owner, the 2nd Duke of Buckingham, was imprisoned several times in the Tower of London. It was said of the Duke that “a young lady could not resist his charms … all his trouble in wooing was, he came, saw and conquered”. He challenged his mistress’s husband to a duel in 1696. And lost. A cross sword emblem set into the East Lawn commemorates his gory death. Even the luscious interiors, manicured to within a square centimetre of their lives, aren’t quite all they seem. Look closely and you’ll find the unexpected, from blood spattered soldiers lurking in the Great Hall tapestries to rabbits mercilessly trapped behind balusters in the gruesome plasterwork of the French Dining Room.

Once a full day’s coach ride from London, Cliveden is now just an hour by train from Paddington. A chauffeur can pick you up from the station at nearby Burnham. Natch. Culinary delights to satisfy the most demanding of gourmands await. The Terrace Dining Room greedily devours six windows of the nine bay garden front. Menu highlights include John Dory slowly cooked to perfection and Heston Blumenthalesque chocolate fondant (The Fat Duck restaurant is a mere 6.5 kilometres downstream).

Business Development Manager Amanda Irby confirms that these days you are more likely to find television chef Jamie Oliver celebrating his 10th anniversary at an informal dinner on the terrace than any political mischief unfolding. “Or you may well pass Sir Paul McCartney engaged in conversation with his daughter Stella next to the Great Hall fireplace,” she remarks. Indeed the President of Afghanistan held meetings in the Macmillan Room lately. History is rumbling along. The Heritage Concierge at Cliveden will never be short of tales to update his tours.

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Architecture Luxury People

The Windsors + Frogmore Cottage Windsor

Fit for a Princess

Windsor Park © Lavender's Blue Stuart Blakley

Reel life.

Frogmore Cottage Windsor © Lavender's Blue Stuart Blakley

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Architecture Luxury People Restaurants

Core Restaurant London + Clare Smyth

La Dulse Vita

Crowned the world’s best female chef, even before she rustled up the wedding supper for Prince Harry and Baroness Kilkeel, it was only a matter of time until Northern Ireland born Clare Smyth MBE would put her own name above the door. “For about 15 years of my life I’ve spent working in three Michelin star restaurants,” Clare recalls. “The last 10 years I spent heading up Gordon Ramsay’s flagship restaurant – I was a partner with him. It was a very traditional style of cooking with beautiful ingredients. I just had a burning desire to do something new, a new challenge for me, and it became Core. Core meaning my heart, the seed of something new. It was a very special moment for me.” Previous experience included working for Alain Ducasse, Heston Blumenthal and the Roux Brothers.

Core by Clare Smyth is in the heart of Notting Hill. Kensington Park Road bisects this stunning stablished stuccoed world of terraces and crescents and circuses. “People offer you glass boxes in the City but I wanted something with character,” she says, “I’ve always had a passion for neighbourhood restaurants.” Her space occupies the ground floor of a block of three terraced houses. “We found a building that was built in 1861,” she explains. “It had lots of Victorian character but it was a shell; it was a mess. We had to do so much work to the building; it was a disaster, but a great journey! Inside, it had lots of beautiful features but as we started to pull it apart, the foundations crumbled, the drains fell in. It got very very delayed. This was my first project. It was a big project to take on. I started this from writing the business plan myself all the way through to going to the bank – concept, everything.”

As far as neighbourhoods go you don’t get much better than this. Next door to Core is St Peter’s Notting Hill. Like much of this swanky area’s architecture, the Grade II* Anglican church (designed by Thomas Allom) dates from the mid 19th century. It’s still an active contributor to the community. Vicar Pat Allerton says, “Whether you’re a lifelong Christian or just asking questions, you’re really welcome. We’re a church family doing our best to follow Jesus Christ, love one another and offer hope to our local community.” Jonathan Aitken, MP turned Prison Chaplain, recently preached at St Peter’s.

A more recent architectural addition to Notting Hill – not that you’d guess it at a glance – is architect Demetri Porphyrios’s residential building behind Core. Chepstow Villas, as you’d imagine, are chunky detached houses and Demetri’s infill looks like its neighbours, both in scale and style. Number 48 is stuccoed with two chunky bays rising through three lofty storeys to prop up an open pediment. But it was only completed in 1989 and is actually a block of purpose built apartments. Then of course there’s Portobello Market… so little time, so many distractions… but we’ve swashbucklingly swept into W11 for the Portobello mushrooms.

Booking three months ago, the last available table was for noon. Maybe that’s what happens when a restaurant’s so current it swoops up two Michelin stars a year after opening. And now she’s the star of a Netflix series, Clare Smyth has swiftly migrated from a name to those-in-the-know to the household variety. She’s upbeat about her industry: “The culinary scene’s phenomenal. Right across the UK we have brilliant world leading restaurants and we have a generation of chefs that have really made it their own.”

Clare has certainly made it her own. “I’ve worked very hard, it’s not just happened overnight. I don’t pinch myself and think ‘I’m lucky’. I think ‘I left home at 16 to become a chef and I worked for it’.” Indeed. “You want to be successful, you want your business to be successful, so you’ve always got to make sure you stay ahead of the game. I try to be better every day.” As to be expected at three figure prices per head, there’s a high sommelier to consumer ratio and even higher waiter to waited on quota. It’s a 54 cover dining room. We’re at Table Five: there is no Siberia. The beautiful people are here and there are some quite attractive couples at the other tables.

Upon arrival, Clare herself – tall, blonde, elegant – stands smiling waving at us from behind the kitchen window. After lunch we will chat to her in the kitchen. Like everything about Core, the menu is beautifully presented with great contents and a personal touch; it’s signed by Clare and her Chefs. The plates are decorated with her fingerprint, reflecting the Marc Quinn giant fingerprint pictures hanging on the walls. Naturally lit by two arched windows, the dining room is comfortably luxurious and luxuriously comfortable.

And so to the menu. “The beginning: lobster and black truffle thermidor gougères. Pepper and olive tart. Veggie Core Fried Chicken and caviar. Core Caesar Salad.” The tart shell is made of crab stock. “Colchester crab: black truffle, celery and red apple. Potato and roe: dulse beurre blanc, herring and trout roe. Seabass: oysters, cucumber and caviar. Celeriac: roasted over wood with black truffle and hazelnut. The other carrot. Snow ball: chestnut, vanilla, pine, eggnog.” The seabass is line caught from Cornwall. The celeriac is soft baked for four hours. The other carrot is posh carrot cake in the shape of a carrot. “The end: white truffle and hazelnut choux. Champagne jelly.” Shoot the moon, the food is fabulous, utterly knockout! It surpasses our wildest expectations and our expectations are pretty wild. Culinary art beautifully sculpted.

Clare hales from a farm near Bushmills, County Antrim. The north coast has two native delicacies: yellowman and dulse. The former is a chewy toffee textured honeycomb. The latter is a purply edible seaweed. Yellowman might not make an appearance on the menu – “I’ve made it once!” Clare admits – but dulse does. In fact, dulse beurre blanc is part of her signature potato dish. It’s good to see that a chef of such international standing hasn’t forgotten her roots. When Michel Roux Junior had Clare’s “potato and roe” he called it “divine”.

In fact Clare declares, “Core is all about being British as much as we can right through to the core, so I really wondered why in my career we were using everything coming from France? I really questioned everything before we opened. I thought, well, why can’t we use British plates? Why can’t we use British designers? We had a 300 year old tradition of making the finest bone china in the world in Stoke-on-Trent but when you go there now there’s huge unemployment and those cultures and traditions have almost died out.” She’s on a mission: “So I was like I’m going to have them make my plates; I’m going to use Sheffield steel; I’m going to use British wood. We source our scallops from The Ethical Shellfish Company on the Isle of Mull. The millers than make the flour for our bread, Wessex Mill, are a fifth generation family owned business. So Core is very much a project from the heart.”

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Fashion People

Mary Martin London + Article 10 The Royal Collection

Behind the Scenes

Not many fashion designers are inspired by pieces of legislation but then not many fashion designers are like Mary Martin. In less than five years she has gained the sort of international recognition others would kill for. For her, going viral is a daily occurrence. Her name first came to the world’s attention (via Huff Post and BBC World Service if you please) when she created the Cecil the Lion Dress for Africa Fashion Week London 2015. “When I saw on TV the lion that had been killed I was deeply deeply shocked,” Mary said. She decided to make the dress in black out of mourning for Cecil. “The big fluffy bits along the top are the tulle, the lion’s mane. The back has got the silkiness and fineness of the lion’s body.” Like all her clothes, Mary painstakingly made the dress by hand, ever the perfectionist, working round the clock to meet the catwalk deadline.

Anyway back to that legislation. Article 10 of the Human Rights Act 1998: “Everyone has the right to freedom of expression,” is what inspired the latest collection from Mary Martin London. That, and a certain mixed race princess. She’s showing again at Africa Fashion Week London much to the thrill of her loyal fans and customers (a few well known popstars included). “I live by Article 10 values and I feel that Prince Harry and Meghan are great beacons: they’ve practised their own freedom of expression by breaking down barriers of class and race by showing us love is for everyone!” The collection is dedicated to the new Duchess of Sussex.

Article 10 The Royal Collection is a riot of colour and form and material and decoration and expression and beauty and movement and chutzpah. The detailing is incredible, such craftmanship. An international fusion of British and African influences is apt for the show and for her standing. Mary may be a real laugh but she takes her work super seriously. She’s flown in her favourite models from France and Switzerland to join London’s best. The clock is ticking again. It’s only a couple of days till she shows at Africa Fashion Week London. “The hems aren’t finished yet!” she cries, dashing round the fittings room, whipping up a frenzied buzz of excitement and pizzazz.

“I’m a fashion icon!” laughs the gregarious designer. It’s no joke: she’s just won the Fashion Icon Award at the International Achievers’ Awards in recognition of her dedication to the industry. Self taught, she’s just back from headlining the Mercedes Benz International Fashion Week in Ghana – another roaring success. Somehow in between, no time to be killed, Mary managed to collect an accolade at the Celebrating People of Colour ceremony in Birmingham. With a killer collection nearing completion, human rights legislation has never been so exciting!