Good morning and welcome to Vittles. Today’s op-ed by the restaurateur Matt Paice is the first in a new series in which we ask London’s restaurant insiders for their candid opinions on the industry. Matt argues that Dorian in Notting Hill has become the most influential London restaurant of the last decade, and that its success (and that of its copycats) is changing how fine dining works: a process he calls ‘Dorianification’.
To read much more about what and who else influences where and how we eat, please consider buying a copy of Issue 3 of our print magazine. It contains everything from investigations into how restaurant influencers make their money, a deep-dive into *the *fruit and vegetable supplier to London restaurants, plus a catalogue of the UK’s 30 most influential restaurants of the last 75 years. We’ve also published various online-only pieces related to The Influencers, which you can access here.
How Dorian has reshaped the economics of fine dining in the city. Words by Matt Paice. Artwork by Dan Biddulph.
In 2022, Chris D’Sylva, a restaurant supplier and proprietor of bougie grocers Supermarket of Dreams and Notting Hill Fish + Meat, launched a so-called ‘bistro for locals’ in one of the UK’s most expensive postcodes. This is where he got to know his target audience: a tiny punnet of Japanese strawberries in Supermarket of Dreams, for example, can be yours for £60, while Dua Lipa once celebrated a birthday in the shop’s basement. D’Sylva recruited head chef Max Coen, whose CV counts two-Michelin-starred Ikoyi and Kitchen Table in London and three-starred Frantzén in Stockholm – all kitchens that take ingredients extremely seriously and use cutting-edge culinary techniques over a dozen or more courses. D’Sylva hired this man and immediately tasked him with serving up canapés and sliders and pork chops and steaks.
Four years later, it may be the worst-reviewed Michelin-starred restaurant in London, currently clinging to its Google score of 3.8. It may be the Beckhams’ favourite place to eat in the city. It may be named – inexplicably – after a novel about a narcissistic Victorian aristocrat. But Dorian is the most influential restaurant in the UK of the last decade: it has gifted us the luxury bistro.
There was no guarantee that it would be a success. Coen, who left the restaurant in June, has spoken about the improbability of signing up to work at a bistro, which he deemed an unconventional career move. And yet, hiring him was D’Sylva’s masterstroke: the food standards of fine dining, such as obsessive sourcing and a blasé approach to ingredient costs, met the standard operating procedures of a bistro. Its obvious success has led to something I call ‘Dorianification’. In the last two years, Dorianification has given us at least four direct clones – Lita, Clare Smyth’s Corenucopia, Chez Rose and Bar Valette – each opened by a chef with either two or three Michelin stars elsewhere in their stable. There are still a few differences among them: Lita’s décor and floor team are substantially slicker than Dorian’s; Corenucopia doesn’t dare charge over £10 for a canapé and actually employs a pastry section; Chez Rose’s dishes were developed by someone with a calculator in one hand; the now-closed (but allegedly returning) Bar Valette’s menu required a food almanac to parse.
But we can also now see the green shoots of a sub-genre of Dorianification across London: Dorian with an east London spin, Jackson Boxer’s Vesper in Exmouth Market and the St Barts’ team’s Tavern in Old Street, with softer pricing for customers who don’t own a quilted gilet. House-made crisps with a charming dip. Bread with arty butter. Caviar somewhere. Chips with a twist. Fresh pasta being the only thing on the menu involving a whole lot of cheffing. And big hunks of meat for £75.
This formula has succeeded, and spectacularly. Dorian turns tables even in the Monday graveyard slots. Lita, Marylebone’s luxury bistro, does 1300 covers a week. Meanwhile, it’s a fact that if you want a primetime Saturday night reservation at any Michelin two-star in London this weekend (bar Gymkhana), you’ll get one. Insiders report that one of London’s newest two-stars is doing single-digit covers a night for midweek dinners, while other starred restaurants are dropping headline prices or introducing early-week discounts. Whether or not you consider the Dorianified restaurants to be playing a psychological trick when the final bill lands, it seems that Dorian’s success and the promise of a lower access point are overturning conventional fine dining wisdom.
