The Campaner, Chelsea Barracks, 1 Garrison Square, London SW1W 8BG (020 4580 1385). Starters and small plates £9-£22.50, mains £22-£77, desserts £9.90-£11, wines from £29
To prepare for eating at the Campaner, the new London outpost of an apparently famous restaurant group in Barcelona, first look in the window of the estate agents just across the square. A two-bedroom apartment on this Qatari-funded development, which occupies what was once Chelsea Barracks, will cost you £6.65m. Spend an extra £1.35m and you can have a third bedroom. Bargain. Either way you’ll be living in a cold-edged and bleak development which, despite being finished, still looks like a computer-generated artist’s impression of itself. There are retractable bollards on the private road to keep the bad people out. There are overly cheerful doormen, loitering on the pavements. Very few lights are on. The website bears the legend: “This is your realm. Enter your private world of sophistication.” I do so love being privately sophisticated.
Now turn from the estate agent’s window and look at the piece of public art a few metres away, clearly designed to give the impression that this is a space engineered for humans. It’s an enormous stylised sculpture of a hare on its knees, arse in the air as if waiting eagerly to be roundly screwed. Finally, you will be ready to confront the menu prices at the Campaner. Were you hoping for a bargain? Oh, you dear sweet thing. Just look at the place.
It’s housed in a red brick edifice of vaulting arches like some Florentine nobleman’s colonnade. Oversized lampshades dangle from the ceiling, and by the door there’s a display of giant tins of caviar, alongside a basket of croissants, which have clearly been there since this morning and will still be there when we leave. Mildly annoying Latin piano jazz plays, made all the more annoying when they turn up the volume. In return for my knackered jacket, they give me a brass fob bearing the legend “007”. It almost feels like sarcasm. They bring us a bowl of what taste exactly like Sea Salt and Balsamic Vinegar Kettle Chips, and not from the freshest of bags. Behind us a 16-strong table of Chelsea’s glossy-haired finest clack into place, to pick uncertainly at small plates.
The whole thing feels mildly ill-at-ease with itself. One of the menu items is listed as “Vitello Tonnato Frankie Gallo Cha Cha Cha”. I ask our waiter what it all means. She explains politely what a vitello tonnato is. I explain politely that it was the other bit I was interested in. She goes away to check. It turns out Frankie Gallo Cha Cha Cha is the name of one of the original restaurants in Barcelona. This place has been open for four months. Was that really the first time anyone had asked? And yet for all this, some of the food here is really very good. Granted, some of it isn’t. A couple of dishes make us frown and tut. But the good things are terrific. Mucking with a vitello tonnato is always risky: thinly sliced veal, blitzed tuna and caper mayo. It works. Why fix that which isn’t broken? Here it’s thinly sliced roast beef, in cashmere-soft folds, with whorls of sauce, rather than rivers, and huge fat caper berries and tiny crispy capers. It is both soothing and exciting.
Four darling little scallops arrive in their shells, perched on dollops of a very good romesco. They are the Maybachs of canapés, with go-faster stripes. It costs £17.50 for four mind, but, my love, what price beautiful things? I am so excited by those two dishes that I wantonly order their “spicy sausage rolls”. Meagre nuggets of fatty, cumin-spiked sausage on a stick come wrapped in a claggy batter that has then been deep fried so it’s puffy and brown. Are corn dogs a big thing in Barcelona? Should they be? We don’t finish them.
In the middle of the menu are some fearsomely priced big plates: lobster with hollandaise and caviar for £77; a lobster and monkfish casserole for two at £70 a head, which comes in two services. Eat the lobster and monkfish, then they’ll take away the broth, add some poached eggs and bring it back to you. There are also rice dishes for two, including a Catalan “socarrat” with red prawns at £38 per person, or £76. That’s £85.50 with the ever-present service charge.
Save up and come here for this alone and pretend it’s good value, because it is an absolute belter of a dish. It’s served in a monster truck hubcap-sized paella pan that befits the price tag. The rice, mixed with deep orange mussels and a fine dice of cuttlefish, has been cooked down in a broth made in part from the heads of the lobsters already served to the wealthier people seated over there, until it is almost dry and sticky. Our waiter scrapes at the base of the pan in a studied manner to portion it out. A socarrat describes the crisp, crusty layer at the bottom of a paella and this isn’t that, not quite. But it is still a hugely satisfying rumble of deep seafood flavours. The red prawns on top are also perfectly cooked. After we are given the first portion, we are left to serve ourselves. And finally, we can relax into the mood of the Campaner, Latin jazz and all. This dish really is the whole point of it.
The dessert menu includes Basque cheesecake, but then you knew it would. A lemon pie is a restaurant service-friendly crisp tart case, filled with sharp lemon curd and topped with peaks of torched meringue. It pretty much works. A chocolate soufflé really doesn’t. It’s halfway to being a chocolate fondant, but not a very good one of those either. The wine list is short and quickly excruciating which is, of course, as you would expect. I am being abstemious tonight and so have a mocktail of lime, syrup, tonic, soda and angostura bitters. It costs £10. I try not to think about the markup on that.
The Campaner means the “bell ringer”, and references nicely the restored Garrison Chapel across the square. The restaurant is clearly trying to establish itself as a community hub for a very particular silk-socked community. Those ageing croissants are part of a breakfast menu which includes a full English for £20, or porridge for £11. With just one glass of English fizz, our bill comes to just shy of £200. We walk out into this new and deserted housing estate for scared wealthy people. I look up at the kneeling hare. I swear the damn thing winked at me.
News bites
In far-flung news, Simon Rogan of L’Enclume in Cumbria, is to open a restaurant in Phuket, Thailand. The Thai version of Aulis, which serves just 12 at a chef’s counter, will be part of the Iniala Beach House luxury resort in Phang-nga. Rogan says they intend to use local produce and native ingredients and work alongside the area’s farmers. The new venture joins another by Rogan on the island of Malta, which is also in partnership with Iniala.
Yum Bug which, as the name hints, offers animal proteins made from insects, is launching a pop-up restaurant to promote its products. The restaurant, in London’s Old Street, will operate from 26 October to 11 November, Wednesday to Saturday, and will have a menu of dishes created by a number of partner chefs. Sam Clark from Moro has come up with hummus topped with cricket mince, while Tim Molemo, head of food at Nando’s, is using the cricket mince in a flatbread with pomegranate and onion (yumbug.com).
A lawsuit in New York accusing both McDonald’s and Wendy’s of misleading diners over the size of their burgers, has been thrown out. A judge ruled that he had not been shown proof that either company delivered smaller products than suggested by their advertising. The company’s efforts to make their food look appetising was, Judge Hector Gonazlez ruled, ‘no different than other companies using visually appealing images to foster positive associations with their products’. The ruling could have implications for similar cases being brought against a range of brands, including Taco Bell, Buffalo Wild Wings and, as reported here a few weeks ago, Burger King.
Email Jay at jay.rayner@observer.co.uk or follow him on Twitter @jayrayner1
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