Hide * | London (UK)

After a rocky start, we had excellent dishes bang on the Michelin star level.
Potential is there to make Hide rise above itself!

At 85 Piccadilly in London (UK) we find restaurant and bar Hide*. It’s opening in April 2018 was one of the most talked about last year. Not only because of the around £20 million spent on the restaurant, but also because people were curious what the joint venture between Chef Ollie Dabbous (who closed his very successful Michelin starred restaurant a year before) and big backer Hedonism Wines (the Russian exile-owned wine merchant in Mayfair) would have in store for their guests.

Hide* is divided over three different levels. Hide Below, in the basement, houses a cocktail bar with a nice view of the beautiful wine cellar. Hide Ground, at street level, serves an à la carte menu from breakfast to dinner and has a more casual approach. Hide Above, on a mezzanine, is the main restaurant and boasts views over Green Park, focusing on tasting menus and set lunches.
The top floor also has a special private dining room “Hide and Seek” for up to 20 people, which has it’s own private entrance, facilities and even a dedicated car lift, for those who want to dine really discreet.
A beautiful feature is the impressive spiral staircase which connects all three floors.

Chef Patron Ollie Dabbous’ career started as a commis with very little experience at Le Manoir Aux Quat’Saisons**, where he worked for 2.5 years working his way up to Chef de Partie. After a year at Claude Bosi’s Hibiscus** (closed in 2016), Ollie upped sticks to San Sebastian in Spain for a position at the legendary Mugaritz**. Later, he came back to London to help open Texture*. In 2012 Ollie opened his first restaurant Dabbous*, which got his Michelin star just 8 months later. In the next four years he launched two other restaurants (Barnyard and Henrietta), but closed all three in 2017 to prepare for the opening of Hide.

Head Chef of Hide Above is James Goodyear and his cv shows a couple of familiar names. James started his career, like Ollie, at Le Manoir Aux Quat’Saisons** were he worked five years and left as a Sous Chef to become Chef de Partie at Dabbous*. Less than a year later he left for an internship at Mugaritz** for nine months. After being Chef de Partie at Maaemo*** in Oslo (Norway) and Head Chef at Wellbourne Salardu in Spain (he is still featured on their website btw), he joined Ollie at Hide.

Hide Above is open 7 days a week for lunch and dinner. No à la carte, but you can choose between the 3-course Set Lunch Menu (at £48) or the 7-course Tasting Menu (at £115) which you can extend with an eighth course (£19 supplement).
The website shows a 5-course Tasting Menu (at £110) and an 8-course Tasting Menu (at £140), but this probably needs to be updated.

We had dinner at Hide Above on a Friday two weeks ago and had the 7-course Tasting Menu, which is the only dinner option. We arrived a bit early so first had a G&T at Hide Below. Love the atmosphere and the enthusiasm of the bar tender.

After being ushered upstair to Hide Above and being shown the little drawer in the table containing a phone charger and cables, head sommelier Piotr (World’s Best Young Sommelier 2017) arrived at the table to explain the wine list. Not your ordinary wine list mind, but a list of around 7,000 wines, stored on an iPad with wines stored in the wine cellar at Hide, but also wines from Hedonism Wines, which can be fetched there on request.

We started of with a well filled basket with 5 different home made breads. Flatbread, corn baguette, sourdough with hazelnuts, a lovely focaccia with green olives and I particularly liked the buttery brioche. Nice smooth butter to go with it.

A number of canapés followed. Lovely Iberico pork dried ham wrapped around a porcelain bone and goose on the feather. Nice presentation (think they’ve used it since the opening). It’s a bit stand-alone, but tasty.

A watermelon gazpacho, with a drop of olive oil on top. Very watery, as you would expect. More of a lemonade on a summer afternoon, instead of a canapé for dinner. Didn’t do much for me. The dip was for the crudités.

Crudités with a dip of chamomile, honey and walnut. Gem lettuce cut in half, a slice of raw carrot, rolled up ribbon of yellow courgette and beet. Although the dip was great, the whole didn’t gave much pleasure. Maybe when having it when dining outside in the south of France in summer, with sun-blushed vegetables, but overlooking the Green Park and seeing the buses drive by in rainy London, it didn’t impress. Also a gem lettuce with some brown spots on them, is not very appealing to begin with.

The first course was tomato filled with bread, olive and basil, with tomato juice and oil around it. Fresh taste, but a very watery tomato made it all a bit boring and simple.

Unfortunately the second dish was even worse. The salmon was quite tough and I couldn’t taste what it was cured in. After asking, they said it was just cured in some salt. The barley underneath was too hard and the soy sauce didn’t blend it together. This was very disappointing.

Leek instead of the salmon for Joanne (as she doesn’t eat cold fish). The leek was very stringy and impossible to cut threw. Also didn’t work together with the soy sauce and seaweed. We left the plates and explained our disappointment with the dishes so far when asked.

The staff picked it up really well. The floor manager also came to apologise and promised to make up for it and assured us it would be better from then on. And he delivered on his promise.

Next was a complementary dish. A dish from the set lunch menu. Pea mousse with fresh peas and pea shoots with mint granite. Excellent dish with pure flavour and extraordinary taste! What a difference compared to the first two dishes we had. Don’t understand why this is on the lunch menu and not served in the evening.
We also received a complementary glass of wine with the dish. According to the sommelier, the wine we had didn’t go with the peas and mint. Well, the 2011 Sancerre “Cuveé Paul”, François Cotat certainly did. What a treat!

Emulsified egg, which was slow-cooked for 2½ hours, with mushroom and parsley. It’s then smoked on hay. Intense taste of the egg with the right level of smokiness. Mushroom and parsley added nice texture to the creamy egg. Utterly delicious!

Light, crispy tempura batter, with juicy and flaky bream inside. Oyster emulsion with chives was bold in flavour and added the ocean to the dish. Crunchy celery for freshness. Well executed dish. Lovely!

The Iberico pork was first cured and grilled à la plancha, before it was barbecued over charcoal. Sweetcorn, coco beans and chard with toasted corn dressing. Nice combination of tastes and textures. A delicious pork dish.
Tamales served with the pork was nice (Tamalas is a modern-day Mexico dish, made of masa, which is corn dough), which is steamed in a corn husk). As was the meadowsweet butter to dip it in. But it felt separate from the pork dish.

Very lightly breaded sweetbread with black garlic sprinkles. Radish, pea shoots, fresh peas and turnip. Comforting and soothing, yet very summery dish. The lemon thyme adding an interesting fresh herby touch. Excellent and classy dish!

Green olive oil ice cream with a drop of olive oil and fresh oregano leaves, served on a block of ice. Nice presentation with a green olive branch frozen into the ice block (can’t really see it on the picture because the condensation of the ice block). Intense olive flavour with a touch of herby freshness from the oregano. Different and delicious!

Jasmine and blueberry compote, panna cotta, jasmine ice cream and a jasmine merengue on top. Flowery dessert. Both light and perfectly balanced flavours.

Peach with peach consommé. The rose made of coco bean ice cream and a few basil leaves. All complementing the peach. Pretty dessert, but more important, it was a joy to eat.

A scrumptious pastel de nata (Portuguese custard tart) with great pastry and a lollipop of soft lemon meringue, like eating a soft marshmallow. Floral sweetness to finish the dinner. Lovely!

Service was excellent from the friendly and welcoming staff. The only thing was that most of the waiting staff were speed-walking through the dining room as if they needed to make up time, which made things feel a bit rushed. At first the dishes came out quite fast as well, but that improved after the first few courses.
Quite a contrast with the calm and precise ritual of serving the wine. A special folding table is placed next to our table, where the selected bottle is placed on, with a special coaster for the cork. Wine is tasted by the sommelier first, before guest are allowed to give their verdict. Love the ceremonial feel to it, which suites here perfectly.

After a rocky start, we had excellent dishes bang on the Michelin star level. Highlights being the peas and mint, the veal sweetbread and the peach dessert. The canapés and the first two courses definitely need a rethink as they’re not up to the same standard as we experienced after. Exactly what I said to Head Chef James Goodyear, when we were kindly invited to have a look in the kitchen.

It’s clearly visible that a lot has been invested here, with great feeling for detail and polished perfection. From the striking design of the different floors with little touches around the Hide-theme, to the presentation of the dishes and the slick service. The same level of consistency of high quality needs to apply to the food. Certainly at this price level. To me there is still much potential to make Hide rise above itself.