Hide Review - Mayfair - London - The Infatuation
"Mayfair isn’t exactly synonymous with modesty, so it should be no surprise that one of its centrepiece restaurants ties its napkins with bird feathers and looks like an oligarch’s treehouse. If you like your handbag to have a stool and your bread basket to resemble a bouquet of flowers, then Hide is for you. But strip aways its flourishes and exemplary attention to detail and you’re left with the fact that this lavish, modern European fine dining restaurant is… just fine. As is the case with many restaurants that cost millions of pounds, Hide has an air of obsessive perfectionism that feels both admirable and like the dawn of a cult. The top floor stares over Green Park and the space, filled with an impeccable platoon of staff, is undeniably impressive. At its heart is the spiral staircase, a carpenter’s wet dream that looks like it’s been carved from Disneyland’s Tree of Life. It goes some way to explaining the wooden atmosphere of the entire place. Like a 7-star hotel restaurant, Hide is open from breakfast through to an à la carte or tasting menu dinner. Let a client take you in the evening, come by to get into Europe’s biggest wine list downstairs, or treat your grandparents to a West End breakfast with a view. And know you can always fall back on the artfully made viennoiserie, given a fry-up is just shy of £30. The menu shows off slick cooking but that doesn’t make it compelling, nor value for money. The house-made bread selection is excellent but the signature ‘Nest Egg’, a technically marvellous savoury custard, contrives to be London’s most decadent serving of snot. There’s some faultless stuff on display here. Namely the banana and peanut butter paris-brest. It’s just, for the most part, there’s an unshakeable feeling that Hide is all kindling and no logs. " - Jake Missing
