It is a badly kept secret among us coddled, gouty, 52-columns-a-year restaurant critics that we fear and avoid the lengthy, fine-dining tasting menu. No fact sends onlookers into more effervescent conniptions. But it’s not that we’re ungrateful for, say, our tiny amuse-bouches of blow-torched mallard lamella with a 12-hour Izumo Province nori reduction, or its delivery under cloche with all the rapidity of Julie Walters serving up two soups. No, it’s just that we have to do that kind of thing a lot, and it’s often done badly: too pompous, too many petals, too few carbs, not a lot of laughs.
But then, just as I’m questioning the entire point of modern haute cuisine, somewhere like Xier in Marylebone, central London, pops up and, like Michael Corleone in the Godfather, just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in again. Xier lives upstairs at chef Carlo Scotto’s new dual project on Thayer Street, not far from Oxford Street. Scotto trained under Angela Hartnett. Downstairs is a more casual affair named XR, with an elegant, modern European menu majoring in British produce: linguine with prawns, lamb sliders, pulled beef cheek and mango pavlova. But let’s respectfully ignore XR and focus instead on Xier, the entirely different beast breathing dreamily upstairs.
Xier is a singular, spacious yet intimate and rather romantic room clad in various shades of fine creams, sigh whites and sublime greys. Xier is British produce being cooked by an Italian who’s clearly influenced by Japanese flavours. It’s a lot like how I hope heaven will be; a sort of tasteful, pale VIP room, away from the riff-raff, with a nook full of vintage cognacs.
Prim tablecloths, sexy, expensive glasses from which to sip Canard Duchêne, tiny iced glasses of pine water to cleanse the palate, then a basket of fresh, warm sourdough with coffee butter – yes, butter that tastes of coffee. This made perfect sense at the time. I want an afterlife where small bowls of fresh, soft, satisfyingly clumpy stracciatella appear with dehydrated wild strawberries and organic honey, then a bowl featuring one orgasmic half of a singular arancino on a sticky, compelling kohlrabi jus. I want eternity to be somewhere where the pudding part of the menu is simply marked “Sweet tooth” and, when it’s time, staff triumphantly appear with not one, not two, but five separate desserts, contrasting but complementing each other. One being a Grand Marnier rhum baba with chantilly cream.
Somewhere during my fourth course – beurre noisette gnocchi swimming in warm kombu tea – I said to Charles, “You know something? This place is as good as the Ledbury. It’s not just one star. It’s more like two.” Because, just like Brett Graham’s dependable slice of perfection, Xier has all the plates spinning at once. It’s surprising and challenging, but you’re still at the reins, having an actual dinner, rather than gripping on solemnly as the chef whisks you through 14 courses of self-indulgent noodling. It also has some of the greatest, magical front-of-house service in London right now.
Still, expect a long evening. Ten courses for £90; no shortcuts. Go with someone you want to talk to or, even better, someone with whom you can sit serenely in peaceful silence – such dining companions are rare, so treasure them. Wine by the glass is fairly reasonable: there’s a Christophe Camu chablis for £11 a glass and a drinkable £9 chianti. One could, of course, spin off quite easily into the Château Mouton Rothschild 1994 at £1,600 a bottle, but these people are far from upselling, so don’t be afeared.
Xier offers two tasting menus, the standard and a vegetarian. We ate our way through both, seeing at least 25 different impressive and beautifully executed concepts. Scotto uplifts a red prawn crudo with teases of raspberry, red caviar and yuzu. He serves salmon with foie gras and bramley apple, and pigeon with purple potato and hazelnut crumble. A chunk of black cod in caramel miso comes with asparagus and shiso perilla-infused oil. My favourite course was a rich bianchetto truffle risotto deftly laced with sumac.
And I dream of that pudding selection: the stiff, pretty, sculpted chocolate mousse with sugar-spun wisps, the small rhubarb tart with white chocolate flourishes, the glorious chocolate profiterole-style splodge in crème anglaise that tastes of black pepper, and the baba, which I mentioned earlier, but which, like New York, New York, is so good, I’ve name-checked it twice. Xier could be the best opening of 2019. On all your behalves, though, I will enjoy being proved wrong.
• Xier 13-14 Thayer Street, London W1, 020-7486 3222. Open all week, lunch noon-2.30pm, dinner 6-10.30pm. Ten-course tasting menu only, £90, plus drinks and service.
Food 10/10
Atmosphere 9/10
Service 10/10
