David Ellis reviews Town: The Wolseley reimagined for the modern age

Review at a glance: ★★★★☆

Town. As in — they’ve gone to it. Boy, has money been funnelled into the place. Wowee. Pricey Drury Lane address, big name chef in Stevie Parle. And look at it: acres of glazed claret tiles, a low-slung ceiling, the kitchen’s WhatsApp-green frontage. Town is somewhere of dark wood and furniture lifted from the office of a particularly successful Sixties ad man. It’s the sort of place that years ago would have filled with men in black tie and women in silk, for parties where getting your eye poked out with a cigarette holder posed a significant risk. I walked in and didn’t know if I’d boarded an ocean liner or fallen into a lava lamp.

What Parle and his money man Jonathan Downey have actually built is a Wolseley reimagined for the modern age. Someone had to: the old one’s been past it for years. Here is a room grandly promising a sense of occasion; even in the tired sunlight of late Sunday afternoon, there came the temptation to linger. Long lunches and late nights could well be on the cards — although, just like the Wolseley, there isn’t really any sense of naughtiness. Beautiful? Certainly. Sexy? Too wholesome for that. But then you shouldn’t really fancy restaurants anyway.

The crowd is a mix of stylish women and men of the creative agency ilk, lots of Breton stripes and statement glasses and not much hair. Alongside them, some big names have been in, including Gary Lineker, who presumably now has plenty of time for repeat visits.

This is not a happy accident restaurant. It all has been thought about, from the smoked coral glasses and £15 forks to the wry menu (“Second-Cheapest White” is one listing) and signs for the loo (“stand up” and “sit down”). Neither is it a restaurant where food matters most — landing the booking and calling the right people to join you is the thing.

In that way, it is a victim of its own looks (who isn’t?). But the thing is, Parle is a very good cook, and faintly obsessive about his suppliers. “I had our cows sorted before we’d signed the lease,” he smiles happily. You can taste that obsession in things like a bright tomato salad, or in a blissful pud of sliced strawberries simply sat in a bowl, holding their own. But unlike his other ventures — Pastaio, or previously Joy at Portobello Docks — Town has no theme other than to serve good food in a knockout space.

Parle’s egalitarianism is on show, at least from noon until 7pm, when a set menu offers two courses for £28, £32 for three, plus a snack of appealing radishes with a gentle miso dipping sauce, served in a green-speckled bowl. From this menu came a hefty tartare, chunks of burgundy-coloured beef glued by a kind of sweet, tingling ketchup of walnut and black garlic. After, perfect gurnard arrived, its skin intact but crisp and curling from the grill, laying in a verbena sauce spiked with spirited fish stock, with broad beans like flat pebbles and miniature Jersey Royals so tiny they made me grin. A daydream dish, the kind the mind conjures for fantasies of packing it all in and escaping to the Corsican coast.

From the main menu, considerably but not offensively more expensive, came a sheet of saffron risotto laid out for bone marrow to rest on. “On Instagram, this’ll sell the place out,” deduced Twiggy. “But it tastes a bit like baby-food mac and cheese.” The saffron contributed colour but almost no flavour. Fortunately, salt and pepper were on the table, a detail so many places now overlook. Later came half a lobster, promising a homemade XO sauce. This was mostly missing, though the meat in the shell was without fault. The claw, artfully prized from its original owner, had the telltale stringiness of having spent too long on the heat. The kitchen is settling in.

Wine is from £8-a-glass, including a good house white Bordeaux. Service is just 10 per cent, meaning the bill is a pleasant surprise, especially as said service is extremely adept, though at one point there were so many waiters milling about I worried they might be planning to swoop in and deport me.

There are tweaks needed, seasoning to adjust. That’ll come. True, no one went to the Wolseley for the food, but I suspect they just might here.

26-29 Drury Lane, WC2. Meal for two about £180, town.restaurant