The Lecture Room and Library review: high-style haute cuisine

Two Michelin

Two Michelin stars haven’t cramped the
style of this flamboyant fine-dining restaurant

Review Holden Frith

Sketch is the precise opposite of that. Sitting hard up against
the border with Soho, it represents something of a challenge to its
hipper, more creative neighbour.

From the pavement, only a peachy glow in the upstairs window
hints at what lies behind the sobre Georgian facade. To wit: a
green-lit forest glade, a pale pink diner, a bar masquerading as a
futuristic space pod and a high-ceilinged amalgam of neoclassical
architecture, art deco decals and Japanese lanterns, resplendent
against a backdrop of red velvet and orange wallpaper.

Where to begin? Perhaps The Parlour, which breaks you in gently
with a relatively conventional bar. Relatively: the 18th-century
cornices are touched with neon and its luridly upholstered chairs
sport legs in the form of ballet shoes en pointe. Self-identifying
as an “eccentric patisserie”, it serves hearty breakfasts and
brunches until the 5pm witching hour, which heralds the arrival of
cocktails and bar snacks.

The Glade, one step further down the rabbit hole, serves the
same menu in a tree-lined grove. Not a real one, of course – the
mirrored tabletops and velvet-clad chairs give the game away – but
a fantastical, fairy-tale replica. I half-expect an impromptu
performance of A Midsummer Night’s Dream.

Before one can begin, we ascend to The Lecture Room and Library,
Sketch’s two-Michelin-star restaurant. The entrance is nothing if
not theatrical: a grand, red-carpeted staircase leading to a dark
anteroom, from which we emerge through a pair of double-height
doors, opened simultaneously by waitresses in white dresses.

The service is impeccable all evening. Well-drilled yet by no
means robotic, it is delivered by personalities ranging from the
reserved to the relaxed. The sommelier counsels us with an
old-school conspiratorial intimacy, proposing a glass of champagne
to get things going, before furnishing us with a white Saint-Aubin
Premier Cru, generous and ripe with a spine of steel, and then a
red Bordeaux from Chateau Alta Gaia for the meatier stretch of the
menu.

Like the room in which it’s served, the food draws from an
eclectic palette. France and Italy are well represented, especially
in the lamb dish, which consists of a deeply flavoured saddle and a
bite-sized rack alla Milanese – a crisp lollipop of meat,
breadcrumbed and fried – along with spring onion, oregano and
pommes Maxime’s (potatoes sliced, roasted and named after a
restaurant in Paris).

Home-made tagliolini, however, gets a piquant Russian kick from
a jewelled cluster of Ossetra caviar, and an oyster with black
truffle derives additional earthiness from a spoonful of Guinness
foam, applied at the table from the head of a pint. Green mango and
blood orange add a Thai-tropical flavour to the lobster dish that
follows.

But stout spume notwithstanding, there are few gimmicks here –
just confident cooking and a willingness to push the envelope.

Perhaps a little too far, in one or two cases. I baulked at the
saffron in the first of many puddings – too strident, too savoury –
but a more conservative confection of hazelnut cream won me back,
and the cumin-infused mousse of the third (or possibly fourth)
dessert was the right side of adventurous – adding depth and warmth
without shouting about it.

At £120 a head for the food alone, the prices are pure Mayfair,
but that buys seven official courses, plus amuses bouches aplenty
(which are indeed amusing, especially a delicate langoustine
reclining in lobster bisque).

And the toilets alone must be worth at least £20. The glittering
black-marble vault of a bathroom halfway up the main staircase is
closer to the dining room, but take a walk to the other end of the
building, through the pink fever dream of the The Gallery, its
walls lined with 91 artworks by David Shrigley, and around the
space-age East Bar, to where giant futuristic eggs conceal the
necessary conveniences.

Then step back onto the pavement, where normal service will be
resumed.

The Lecture Room and Library at Sketch, London W1: sketch.london