LUXURY LONDON
CONNOISSEUR
LEFT GARDEN CUPCAKE, FROM THE EIGHT-COURSE TASTING MENU (£245)
RESTAURANT REVIEW:
ABOVE AT HIDE R E O P E N E D A N D R E B R A N D E D , A B O V E A T H I D E I S , Q U I T E S I M P LY, ONE OF THE MOST ACCOMPLISHED, DARING AND BEAUTIFUL
O
DINING EXPERIENCES IN THE COUNTRY RIGHT NOW
Words: Rob Crossan
ne unexpected element of a window seat at Above at Hide is that the view out of the floor-to-ceiling windows puts you directly in the sightline of the top deck of the Number 9 bus as it trundles along Piccadilly. It takes a lot to distract the senses from the cooking of Ollie Dabbous and his team but, should rapport with your dining partner be on the short-of-sparkle side, then making eye contact with a random, ever-changing collection of commuters is an effortless lubricant to conversation. ‘Should I raise my glass to that bloke?’ my dining partner asks. ‘Best not,’ I
conclude. For I cannot think of a less likely conduit to friendly interaction than to give a wink and raise a glass from the window of a one Michelin-starred restaurant to a bloke in a tracksuit top who’s reading the Metro while eating an egg mayo sandwich. The prices I’m about to write down, after all, may initially shock you, and all regular eaters of egg mayo sandwiches. The eightcourse tasting menu with the ‘classic’ wine pairings (the cheapest of the three wine pairing options) costs £245. Per person. Before service. Yes, we’re in a pandemic. And that is, even by London standards, an extremely ambitious price point. Yet, there are ways LUXURYLONDON.CO.UK
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of making it feel more palatable. Opt for the eight courses and you’re in for a four-hour experience, which, for two people, costs no more than a train fare and overnight stay in Edinburgh. Now, I adore the Scottish capital as a staycation option. But I will take four hours in Above at Hide over 48 hours on the Royal Mile. Because this is, quite simply, one of the most accomplished, daring and beautiful dining experiences in this country right now. It was nearly a decade ago that I ate at Dabbous, Ollie’s eponymous restaurant in Fitzrovia; a place where waiting lists were year-long and dishes set a new standard for intense, highly-focused flavours and unusual ingredients. It was where I ate meadowsweet for the first time – an almond-tasting perennial herb, the hazy aroma of which I now covet to the point of drinking meadowsweet tea when nobody’s watching. There’s a more modestly-priced ground floor brasserie here – formerly called Hide Ground, now simply Hide – and a wine bar in the basement next to a cellar groaning with bottles of Screaming Eagle at prices that even Elon Musk would think twice about (guests can also choose wine from Hedonism’s nearby store – the largest in the world – which will be delivered to your table within 15 minutes). It’s after climbing a gargantuan oak staircase that looks like a Lewis Carrollimagined approach to the world’s poshest treehouse that you arrive at Above, where Primal Scream and The Velvet
