kitty fishers mayfair – Lavender's Blue

Breakfast at Harrods

Ever since he started pottering about in 1759, aged 29, Josiah Wedgwood’s surname has been synonymous with feats of clay. Just 11 years later the self proclaimed ‘Vase Maker General to the Universe’ wrote to his business partner Thomas Bentley about a “violent vase madness” afflicting the Anglo Irish aristos. Trust the West British to have a weakness for garniture. Americans have subsequently assumed the mantle.

The last time we dined at Harrods we were plonked on a banquette next to the late Lady Lewisham (aka Raine Spencer) sporting the grandest bouffant since Marie Antoinette. Her Ladyship was promoting Le Grand Atelier. Today it’s breakfast and launch. Generations come and generations go. Now it’s the time of the talented designer Lee Broom to shine. He’s a tastemaker and a man of taste (Kitty Fisher’s is one of his favourite London restaurants).

The stats are impressive. In less than a decade Lee has: released 75 furniture and lighting products under his own label | designed 40 commercial and residential interiors | created 20 products for other brands | opened two eponymous showrooms (London and New York) | won 20 awards including British Designer of the Year 2012 | received a Queen’s Award for Enterprise 2015. Having collaborated with iconic brands such as Christian Louboutin and Mulberry (he has a fashion degree from Central St Martin’s), it was only natural that Wedgwood would come knocking on his door. He may have products in 120 stores worldwide, but there’s only one Harrods (complete with Wedgwood concession).

In person, Lee is charming and polite. “I was inspired by Wedgwood’s historic black and white Jasperware,” he explains. “It already has a contemporary feel. I’ve taken the classical elements and silhouettes and stripped back the ornamentation for an even more modern look. I love the charcoal colour and biscuit texture of Jasperware which I’ve injected with neon high gloss details!” Priced from £7,500 to £12,000, the bowl and vases are handcrafted in Wedgwood’s Stoke-on-Trent factory. Josiah would approve.

Kitty Fisher’s Mayfair + Shepherd Market London

Generations Come and Generations Go

Oh. Em. Gee. Whizz. After months of talking about going, we simply rock up on a random Wednesday night with a zest for life but no booking. Reservations at the tiny restaurant (just 40 lucky customers at any given time) are infamously hard to come by. We’re in luck. No tables free, but the bar along the window is ours. We’re perched on stools like Nighthawks. Perfect for spying on our usual Shepherd Market hangout Le Boudin Blanc. Skipping the light fantastic cocktails (Good Kitty, Bad Kitty but no Hello Kitty) we head straight for a bottle of Voignier Le Paradou 2015 (£30). Dry with a hint of honeycomb.

Kitty Fisher’s is all about plates. Courses are just so passé. The menu is concise: five small plates | five medium plates | four large plates | four sweet plates | one cheese plate. Yet there’s plenty to satisfy a pescatarian and carnivore. Whipped cod’s roe, bread and fennel butter (£7.50) is chef Tom Parry’s four fingered salute against mediocrity. A textural contrast of creaminess and crustiness. Taleggio, London honey, mustard and black truffle (£9) is a bitter sweet symphony of wood fire grill smokiness. The last of the savouries arrives. Burrata, beetroot and radicchio (£12.50) is a colourful collage of purple and white. Cambridge burnt cream (£7) isn’t an undergrad’s baking error but a Cointreau and cinnamon crème brulée smoothly nestling under a crackly golden lid. These plates aren’t for sharing. They’re far too good for that.

Named after a Georgian lady of the night, the restaurant is aptly boudoir-like with dark purple walls and red lamp shades and background jazz music. Dining extends underground, down the dogleg staircase, past the pumpkin stacked kitchen window. Trumpers accessorised loos are at the far end. Incidentally, we note that currency signs have vanished from fashionable menus as swiftly as pounds disappeared out of the wallets of Kitty Fisher’s gentlemen callers. Laterally, history repeats itself.

Share this:

Share this: