Pret À Diner presents The Bohemians: from Rogues to Royals ★★★★★

Founded by KP Kofler, Pret a Diner combines Michelin-starred food, exquisite cocktails, art and music in unusual settings around the globe, from an Elizabethan church in Basel and to an industrial factory in Berlin. The project has returned to the UK this month with ‘The Bohemians – from Rogues to Royals’ at The Club at Cafe Royal, a private member’s club located within the historic Hotel Cafe Royal on Regent Street.
The Chefs
Hotel Café Royal’s Andrew Turner has teamed up with New York based Patti Jackson and Ryan Tate to create a incredibly creative array of dishes: from a sharing selection to start, followed by a course from each chef in a four-course menu, and some hand crafted petit fours to finish, this is unpretentious fine dining at its very best.
Known for fusing mid-Atlantic American traditions with Italian cuisine, Jackson is the chef and proprietor of Delaware and Hudson, listed by The New York Times as one of the Best New Restaurants of 2014. Tate comes most recently from farm to table restaurant Blenheim and was formerly Chef/Partner at Le Restaurant, where his creative ingredients and pure, focused flavours earned him a Michelin star in less than six months of opening. The two have joined forces to create a fusion of British and American cuisine (and culture) at this Boho-themed evening in the suitably pomp surrounds of the Hotel Café Royal.
The Pret a Diner projects are known for their extravagance, and they've pulled out all the stops for this their latest, putting a unique and exclusive spin on pop-up restaurants in London. Pret a Diner's return to England boasts an inspirational 'clash of cultures' – and creative talents.
On the menu
The menu kicks off with intricate nibbles: a brilliantly creative pea & sorrel ball literally explodes in your mouth and sits beside a pair of miniature flowerpots – filled with sesame seeds as 'soil' and tempura crab with pickled ramps as its sprouting roots. The creativity continues with a rich, light truffle cheesecake, and homemade pretzel bread, all expertly presented and unparalleled in flavour.
Diners are then treated to starters of delicately sliced tuna carpaccio, on which sit parcels filled with gentleman’s relish, alongside radishes, quails' eggs and caviar – this is food you'll want to savour...but struggle not to devour.
The starters are then followed by a choice of mains, each from a different chef: Duck served with celery pecan gratin and rhubarb from Patti Jackson or seabass with piquillo pepper, fennel and dill from Andrew Turner. Ryan Tate then finishes it all off with a dessert of a light, fluffy merangue filled with strawberries, maple vacherin and buttermilk. And, if you've room, it's worth tucking into the petit fours, handcrafted and beautifully presented.
Tiziano Tasso, Bar Manager of The Club at Café Royal, will collaborate with Dominic Jacobs (The Whip, Mayfair) to create cocktails inspired by the original Café Royal cocktail book, compiled in 1937, with a distinctly Boho feel. Oil paintings from Jake Wood-Evans and evocative portraiture from South Africa’s Ryan Hewett allow the creative team behind Pret a Diner to build on the hotel’s timeless visual legacy and iconic history.
Tickets for their Bohemian evening may be £75 per person, but will whisk you away to another era of artistic chic and haute cuisine. Book here via their website. Eat your heart out, Heston: this is experimental gastronomy at its finest. ★★★★★