Keepers House, Peyton & Byrne, Royal Academy, Piccadilly, London W1J 0BD

Keepers House, Peyton & Byrne, Royal Academy, Piccadilly, London W1J 0BD

25/02/2014

www.keepershouse.org.uk

She said: When I heard of a dedicated vegetarian menu every Tuesday at the Royal Academy’s new restaurant I immediately booked a table for the opening night. The sensation of walking through the Academy courtyard long after the galleries have closed is truly magical. A modest door to the side of the main entrance and a trip down an inconspicuous flight of stairs revealed a warren of rooms including a buzzing, cosy bar and a sleek, contemporary dining space. We were shown to our table and presented with a glass of champagne each which got me very excited about the culinary wonders to come. The vegetarian set menu, at £35 per head, was essentially a series of six small plates with mostly earthy tasting vegetables presented as works of art. The food did indeed look beautiful and tasted very fresh and I really liked the fact it wasn’t soaked in oils or powdered with salt which so many other places do. We were able to take our time over each course and enjoy the setting. I did enjoy the experience but at the same time don’t think I would go back. Each course was interesting, enjoyable and contrasted nicely between them; the service was good; the price okay for the setting and specialist nature of the evening but it didn’t blow me away. These days, vegetarian food does blow your mind and there was something just a bit too purist about the food here. It’s a bit like watching a technically brilliant ballet dancer but not connecting with the story she’s telling. Anyway, in short, check it out once.

He said: The waiter should only ever approach my table with small plates of cutesy nosh when it’s Chef sending it for free to keep us calm between courses. If it’s actually meant to be one of the courses then my mood blackens instantly, just like the skies over Wimbledon on an English summer’s day. That kind of refinement (‘my cooking is so amazing that you only need a spoonful because it will knock you off your chair and you won’t be able to eat more once you’re on the floor’) is entirely lost on me. Maybe I’m just a brute. Or maybe years of eating spicy curry and chugging whisky has numbed my taste buds to anything but slap-you-in-the-face flavours. Whatever it is, there is nothing I dislike more in a restaurant than tiny portions. All that alchemy from Keeper’s House, the heirloom carrots, the foamy this and that’s, might have been genius, but the first thing on my mind is not that Chef is the Caravaggio of Carrots, but that some miserly bean-counter has decreed that for the business to succeed each diner must be served no more than 127 micrograms of potatoes and one iota of polenta. For me going out to eat is as much about the generosity, the devil-may-care abundance, as it is about the skill. I want to go in hungry, and I want to come out satiated; obviously I’d like to experience awesome flavours, etc. but the priorities will forever be in that order. There are some good things about Keeper’s House, and the cooking might be one of them, but you’ll have to read what She said to find out about that. I did like the location of Keeper’s House, and that it offers a veggie tasting menu. But if eating at the Royal Academy I will always opt for the much more interesting space of The Restaurant and its more laid back, more generous cooking.