‘Would you have a table next July at 9 p.m.?” Ha, ha, ha.
Few restaurants open dripping as much mystique and malarkey as Le Caprice, recently beamed in from London’s St. James’s to the starchy Pierre Hotel. This newspaper devoted an entire page to it. The supposedly fierce critic of the Times of London has blessed it with four stars out of five, despite wisely mentioning the food only in passing.
But for a joint that has long yearned to be in Manhattan, Le Caprice sure doesn’t have much use for us locals.
Unless you’re an ocean-hopping regular at Caprice Holdings’ celebrity-full London joints, forget about Twittering epiphanies from this beautiful, boring, restaurant any time soon.
“Le Caprice belongs on the Upper East Side,” owner Richard Caring recently said. Ahem — a few years ago, he carried on prolonged, secret talks to launch it in a new, west Midtown office tower. After that proved too costly, enter Plan P — the Taj Hotels-run Pierre, frantic to show some juice after a decade in the outer darkness.
A prettily mirrored, art deco-ish dream-box in black, white and silver, Le Caprice blows away memories of the stuffy old Café Pierre. But the streamlined iconography, sweetened with 1960s David Bailey photos of Jean Shrimpton in Manhattan, is where the warmth ends.
Ask for a table at a civilized hour, and the hostesses pretend to check before sadly offering you 6 or 10:30. In fact, a glimpse of their computer revealed that the whole place was held for “manager’s slots” from 7 to 10 p.m. for the foreseeable lifetime.
After repeatedly striking out trying to reserve by phone, I popped in at lunch without a booking. A stroke of luck opened the pearly gates: A manager who’d worked at another restaurant recognized me. We were promptly seated, and dinner bookings became a cinch. But when a friend they didn’t know arrived early one night and asked if she could have a drink at the bar until the rest of us arrived, she was coldly exiled to a remote hotel lounge.
Break through the defenses and you’ll find executive chef Michael Hartnell turns out some decent dishes, but none competes with the clientele. More entertaining than the odd boldfaces are women who — despite Ms. Wintour’s queenly turn at the launch party — take their cues from lesser magazines than Vogue. A lunchtime lady sported a baroque, tree-like hat of the Easter Parade ilk. At dinner, a very tall, sullen and silent woman appeared to seethe under her fur vest atop a jumpsuit and bell-bottom pants. “She looks the way Mrs. Woods must be feeling,” my friend observed.
The menu reflects the upper-middle-class British itch for what sour old monarchists still regard as culinary daredevilry, so Asian, Italian and French notes stake their claims. Garlicky chicken Milanese was good Italian schnitzel. Flaky, moist cod under crisp batter scored for the home team, although dull “chips” didn’t measure up.
Salmon fishcake is a club
classic in the best sense, bound to a gossamer lightness with whipped potatoes and seasoned with mundane elements including mustard and ketchup; it would be the toast of Palm Beach if the locals had better taste.
Le Caprice buys from Peter Luger supplier Master Purveyors, and supple steak tartare was sparklingly complexioned with Worcestershire sauce, Tabasco and mustard. But chopped steak, ground in-house, was devoid of flavor or moisture. And miniaturization and plain weirdness undercut much of the menu.
Butternut squash soup came full of pumpkin seeds. Microscopic, Thai-baked sea bass filet proved nicely herbed “when found,” my friend said snarkily, under a sheaf of banana leaves; soy dip sweet enough for Dylan’s Candy Bar was wildly out of register with the fish.
Maladroit, unsightly starters included hamachi sashimi closely resembling an oil slick and tasting mainly of toasted sesame, and “beetroot” salad that was mostly red endive with a few eensy beets and a spoonful or two of goat cheese.
Desserts like chocolate pudding souffle and blueberry/ricotta cheesecake are such good, clean fun, it’s a shame most locals won’t get to enjoy them — at least not until Caring decides his pals can’t fill the house forever. New Yorkers would love to embrace this jewel box the owners gambled a fortune to launch. What a pity the feeling isn’t mutual.
scuozzo@nypost.com