Latest opening: The Cocochine
What: A seriously high-end restaurant that’s seeking to do Mayfair fine dining differently. Just off Berkeley Square on Bruton Place, The Cocochine prioritises ‘personal connection and old-school hospitality’. To this end, it does not offer online bookings with all tables needing to be reserved over the phone and has a website that gives little away other than said phone number (it doesn't even feature a menu or pricing information). Additionally, the restaurant has an ‘exclusive table use’ policy, meaning no table turning at all. Set over four floors, The Cocochine has a basement wine cellar; a 28-cover dining room on the ground level, a heart stoppingly-expensive looking kitchen and seven-seat chef’s counter on the first floor; and a double height private dining space able to hold up to 14 guests on the top floor.
Who: Sri Lankan-born chef Larry Jayasekara. He has a top flight cooking CV that includes Restaurant Bras in France, Le Manoir aux Quat’Saisons, The Waterside Inn and Gordon Ramsay Group. He is best known in the industry for his four year stint as head chef of Ramsay’s Michelin-starred Pétrus restaurant in Knightsbridge, during which time he won the National Chef of the Year cooking competition. His backer is high-profile art dealer and fashion industry insider Tim Jefferies, who runs Hamiltons Gallery just down the road.
The food: The Cocochine offers a three-course a la carte menu for £145 that is preceded by a generous serving of snacks but - in keeping with its mission to do things differently to other top end restaurants - can also create bespoke menus. On the chef’s counter, it is possible to have just one course and a glass of wine while the lavish PDR atop the restaurant offers bespoke menus only (Jayasekara says that - with notice - he is willing to cook anything at all for those that stump up for The Cocochine’s most exclusive space). Though he is unwilling to label it himself, his cooking style is broadly Modern French. Dishes include otoro tuna with Japanese soy and golden Oscietra caviar; hand-dived Orkney Island scallop with pumpkin, pickled strawberry and elderflower sauce; Poulet de Bresse chicken with leek, morel mushrooms and jus gras; and Rowler Estate quince and vinegar tart with Tosi gorgonzola. Quite a lot is being made of the restaurant’s elevated sourcing practices. Some produce is grown, reared and shot especially for the restaurant on a farm in Northamptonshire but Jayasekara is also willing to go much further afield to secure the very best for his menus.
To drink: The restaurant has a walk-in wine cellar that’s stocked with some of the world’s most in demand wines including verticals of Pétrus, La Tâche and Vega Sicilia. Still wine starts at £15 a glass for white and red while sparkling wine starts at £21 for a glass of Billecart Salmon Brut Reserve.
The vibe: The Cocochine has a seriously high-end finish throughout. In fact, it could almost be described as understated were it not for the art that hangs on the walls. The rotating selection features works from Jefferies private collection including some of the world’s rarest 20th-century editorial photography (which is one of his specialisms). With a photography ban in the top-level PDR due to the presence of several original prints by Andy Warhol, it’s safe to say that the venue is so stuffed with rarities that it puts pretty much every other restaurant in the capital to shame.
And another thing: Taking its name from a pet name the deep-pocketed Jefferies has for his daughter, The Cocochine has been a very long time in the making. Jayasekara started looking for a space in 2018, eventually identifying a site that had not previously traded as a restaurant and therefore required a complete and, by the sound of it, very exacting rebuild. The project then suffered two big delays. First, there was not enough electricity, which took six months to put right. Then, just as the final touches were being made last October, Thames Water dug up the road and flooded a nearby office. This led to the road being closed for another six months, meaning that the pair had no way of getting the furniture in. It is understood that Jefferies pretty much wrote Jayasekara a blank cheque for the project, which is just as well given the delays, the complete remodelling of the building and The Cocochine’s incredibly high-end finish.
27 Bruton Place, London W1J 6NQ
www.thecocochine.com
