A review of Kaspar’s Grill at the Savoy
I have discovered the most magnificent combination: champagne and soda bread. I don’t mean champagne baked in soda bread, which would be daft even if some waitrose supplier’s marketing department eyes just lit up. I mean champagne sipped with occasional bites of soda bread.
I happen to know this due to one of those restaurant vouchers you can get offering champagne three course meal at the Savoy fish grill. Although the Savoy definitely told me off for calling it a voucher rather than a certificate. I don’t think they are going down market. The most expensive wine was £345 FOR A GLASS.
Now I have mentioned that I love fish, so this place should be my hang out. Look at the decor, the glass emulating curing hanging fish.
I started with soda bread with cured fish (hence my discovery) which was delicious, and my husband chose wild seabass ceviche, confit octopus, mango which was delicious in appearance and full of great flavours, but the octopus was dead tough.
Next I made a wrong turning. I misread lemon sole fish and chips to mean lemon sole (which is fish) and chips. Actually it was a rip off version of ‘fish and chips’ (inverted commas make all the difference) which means that the fish was battered and arrived with fries. Now (1) I just came to a fish grill i don’t want a takeaway and (2) don’t ever think you can make fish and chips like a fish and chip shop unless you actually are a fish and chip shop because you can’t. It is a basic law of physics. I don’t know why. I have never proved if through first axioms but I sure have proved it from careful and repeated experimentation.
I comforted myself with the best glass of sauvingon blanc I have ever tasted (and it came in at a lot less than £345) and a nice side of chilli- broccoli.
Desserts were a challenge. They didn’t look so exciting on paper. You kind of had to hope that they were so well executed they justified the boring descriptions. We went for yogurt and rhubarb sorbet and sticky toffee pudding (the associated attractions being blueberry compote and butterscotch sauce.) We assumed that this meant we had one heavy and one lighter option, but the rhubarb yogurt came drenched with vanilla cream ( hidden in the small print). Who does this? Who disguises their creamy desserts as something that you might pick up from the healthy aisle in the supermarket… if you’re feeling VERY good?
I asked how the decaffeinated coffee was, and the waiter sort of rolled his eyes in sympathy. I ordered it anyway, and it was as fairly reported on by the waiter, soso. I think that the Nespresso machine has ruined this aspect of my life for me. I would not even have expected good decaf coffee in the past. Never again will I enjoy coffee out.
Kaspar’s Seafood Bar & Grill
The Savoy
Strand
London, WC2R 0EU
+44 (0) 20 7420 2111
