Until last week, Punk Royale was easily the strangest restaurant I’ve been to all year. But they’ve already been usurped by a spot in a repurposed office block less than half a mile away. The fabulously bizarre Lilibet’s opened her doors with little or no fanfare in mid-September, beckoning us into her world of strange.
Behold the antique fireplaces, the floral chairs and wallpaper, the multitude of gilt-framed, 18th-century French paintings, the pretty etched glassware, the monogrammed napkins, the tall dinner candles. Lilibet’s has about it the air of how the palace of Versailles would look if its designers (in Lilibet’s case Russell Sage Studio) had been allowed really to let their hair down. The restaurant, by Ross Shonhan, ex-Nobu executive chef and founder of the Bone Daddies ramen chain, is named after our beloved Queen Elizabeth II. Apparently, our former monarch was born in this very building on 21 April 1926, when the site was still a Mayfair townhouse.
And what better way to pay tribute to Her Maj than by creating from scratch a multimillion-pound, turbo-chintz, mock-aristocratic dining room serving fire-roasted beef-fat oysters, deluxe seafood platters, anchovy eclairs, trou Normand and a rather regal-sounding fish triptych. The diner selects a fish – gurnard, sea bass or sea bream – and it is then served in three ways: crudo, grilled and as a soup made à la minute from its bones. A fantastically eco-friendly way to eat all the parts of a fish.
From the moment you enter, Lilibet’s throws up many questions. You, the bedazzled diner, will sit on your multi-cushioned boudoir chair in this charming, Las Vegas-style royalist fever dream, head spinning and muttering, “But how does it feel and smell so convincingly ancient when it’s been here for only a matter of weeks?” In many ways, Lilibet’s is the world’s sexiest purpose-built National Trust building.
Obviously, all of the above would be extra-hilarious if the food was dire and the atmosphere stiff, but neither of those is true. Lilibet’s is, rather, pure joy. It’s high drama, camp as heck and utterly uncopyable. This is the place to take your out-of-town parents, your lover who feels neglected, and clients you really don’t want to talk to. The meal I’ll keep returning for, though, will be the dover sole, expertly filleted tableside and served with Café de Paris butter, with a side of Lilibet’s mash topped with shellfish bisque and lobster meat.
Lilibet’s is endlessly lovable. In fact, I’d go so far as to say it’s my new favourite restaurant.
