Alex Webb, above, is a name to remember. He’s a darned good cook – winner of the 2020 UK Master Chef, the Professionals, and now running a superb eponymous restaurant at London’s Hyde Park Corner. Alex is also a thoroughly nice young guy.
Honestly, he started potwashing back home in Essex, and worked his way up from there. A pop-up he ran this last Summer at INTERCONTINENTAL LONDON was so successful that now he is a permanent feature with his own restaurant, adjacent to and with one of its entrances from the hotel.
It’s a comfortable, spacious eating place. Tonight nearly every seat is taken. It takes some time to rea the menu, a Webb biography and more. Canapées are suggested, as are signature cocktails. Chef Webb is Earl Grey-infused Beefeater, lemon balm and ginger-honey syrup, egg white and strawberry. Whatever you eat, there’s wine pairing, four pours for £35 (how much do you get?) or four ciders, from a Webb friend, for £25. There are so many food menus it could be a case of what do you do?
Chopping and changing is allowed, so an eye-appealing Beetroot, beetroot, beetroot, from the £95 veggie seven-courser, is followed by Salt-baked parsnips in tarragon and cranberry gel, puréed and crispy parsnips and hazelnut butter sauce from the same menu. To show flexibility, the entrée main, from the seven-course £110 list, is a couple of generous fingers, side by side, of mouthwateringly fabulous Lake District Farmers ribeye, from that cooperative, with black shredded Brussels, crispy bacon and black mushroom purée (Girlahead eschewed the beef jus). Taste all this with a glass of Joseph Drouhin’s Givry – who cares about the year, at this stage? Nibble on slices of the breads made right here, in Alex Webb.
His dad has contributed, too. Underneath the slices is a printed poem, by Pa, Norman Webb: ‘Long fields of barley and of rye And clover that meets the sky Ladies and gentlemam We don’t come here to do you harm But to do you good Where the pills have cured one or two They have killed Ruddy thousands’.
The whole experience of dining Alex Webb is thoroughly personal, authentic, and professional in a 2023 way. The manage moved west along Piccadilly from Fortnum’s. Girlahead flew north from Nice to be here – and both know that Alex Webb is luxury dining for today. It’s real food with touchpoints of surprise.
