Le Caprice @ London, UK ***

*Wild Rabbit Salad with Elderberries and Cob Nuts

Having spent the past few months shuttling back and forth between London and New York, I think I am finally in a place to articulate my feelings on the difference between the restaurant scenes in two cities. Whereas in the NYC one often has that uneasy feeling that everyone around us is looking to trade up, in London a similar current of competitiveness is tempered by the existence of a few classic establishments to whom pledging allegiance feels like a privilege. In my frenzy of restaurant scouting, I sometimes lose track of  the most delicious feeling, that of being a regular.

One restaurant that inspires such loyalty is Mayfair’s Le Caprice. I had heard of it through friends, but what really drew me to dine there was Henry Bourne’s incredible food photography in the eponymous book Le Caprice, by my food writing idol A A Gill. Cooked fish swimming through a scene, cocktails poured in stop motion, these are the images that a menu conjures and the imagination buffets and expands, but that one seldom sees successfully executed in a tangible fashion. Eschewing the tantalizing Steak Américaine, this evening’s choice of the *Wild Rabbit Salad was entirely predicated on the delightful footnote *Game may contain shot. With my mind in a whirl considering how this wild creature might reach my table and what it would look like when it did, biting gingerly into the tender pieces of flesh was quite a thrill, finding it to be marred by not one single piece of shot almost a disappointment. Even the pianist appeared to empathize- the piece Stormy Weather echoed my tangled emotions.

Where else can you take such a journey of the mind in a space where you feel perfectly at ease? For faithful continuity and perhaps even a flight of fancy, find a place like this and return often.

Details: Arlington St London, SW1A 1RD, United Kingdom (+442076292239)