Kai Mayfair

Kai Mayfair Restaurant Review:

Original, exciting and innovative---these are some of the adjectives that come up when people talk about Kai Mayfair. It’s partly the poetry of the menu which sets you off (though some find this inappropriately pretentious), but it is also the accomplished cooking. To begin with the menu: “A Nest of Imperial Jewels” is a dish of chopped prawn, chicken or vegetables pan-fried with mustard greens; and if you want “Buddha Jumps Over the Wall,” a dish that includes the likes of shellfish, abalone, sharks’ fin, dried scallops, sea cucumber and Chinese mushrooms (it comes with gold), you must order five days in advance and pay £108 for the experience. Not all the dishes are so described: aromatic crispy duck is just that, as is aromatic crispy bean curd, though the price of the latter at £25 might make you long for something poetic to ameliorate the expense. The venue is glossy, the international clientele equally as polished; the service is terrific, but so it should be. The wine list trawls the world and includes some great French numbers from Château Margaux and Château Petrus. For a more moderate experience, go for the 3-course set lunch at £27.