Vulgarity takes many forms, and some are more tolerable than others. Wolfgang Puck, the Austrian-American who transformed popular eating habits in Los Angeles and Las Vegas, specialises in a type that is forgivable because it is honest. There is nothing worthy, ethical or sanctimonious about his latest opening, at 45 Park Lane in London's Mayfair; rather, it is unapologetically ostentatious and expensive. You visit knowing vast sums of money will change hands, and expecting to be extremely well fed. Both those things will most likely happen, so you will leave happy, which, after all, is the aim of the ritual.
Puck opened his first restaurant, Spago, in West Hollywood in 1982. It was renowned for its haute-cuisine pizzas. Three decades later, he has become probably the world's most celebrated steak chef, mainly because of the branches of The Cut he has opened in Los Angeles, Las Vegas and Singapore. Now it has come to London, sitting by the Dorchester hotel.
The interior might, as some critics have suggested, resemble an airport lounge; if so, its visitors must be flying first-class. The dark-tan leather sofas, sparkling cutlery, immaculately uniformed doormen, gleaming table-lamps and marble flooring all ooze money-no-object. The main room is deep and thin, almost corridor-like, on the ground floor and adjacent to the whizzing sports cars and restored Routemaster buses of W1. On the table next to us, a posse of young executives with over-gelled hair spend 35 minutes inspecting their nails, after which David Haye, the recently retired heavyweight, turns up dressed neck to toe in black. The Cut is the sort of place where boxing champs keep their entourages waiting.
Read more at http://www.independent.co.uk/
No comments:
Post a Comment