Eat & Drink
Originally published on Tuesday, 18th January 2011
The Restaurant
Oliver Peyton brings a slice of Dixon-inspired resto-love to the Royal Academy
Heston’s forthcoming Dinner might be the talk of the foodie-town. But it seems he’s also riding the timely crest of restaurateurs incapable of mustering a decent name for an erstwhile exciting project. I mean, can we spell d-o-n-e much?
Just sitting in our inbox this week, for example, we have:
My Lake Hotel (it’s a hotel on a lake);
Pollen St (a restaurant on, yes, Pollen Street);
The aforementioned Dinner (he has two sequels in the works: Brunch and TV Dinner, a groundbreaking takeaway concept venue*);
And now we have the new (admittedly rather sexy-looking) restaurant from Peyton and Byrne called, wait for it, The Restaurant.
I mean, wow. They all look gorgeous enough… but seriously chaps: what’s with the dull names?
Now, cynicism aside, we’ve loved the Royal Academy’s various pop-ups (Sketch, Bistrotheque). So it’s great that there’s finally somewhere permanent around Burlington-way to sate our hunger – that isn’t the usual Cecconi’s or Automat. And we’re excited to see how P&B and Tom ‘Shiny Gold Balls’ Dixon (or at least his design team) can brighten up the RA's usual fodder of grandmothers-who-lunch, tourists and the odd quirk-ball artist. Plus, they apparently even serve The Food at The Restaurant. And maybe some of The Wine. Which is always The Bonus, non?
* Not really, but we’d hardly be surprised
INFO
The Restaurant launches Jan 19
Royal Academy of Arts, Burlington House, W1J 0BD
