An invitation to lunch at Caviar Kaspia was, once <br>
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upon a time, an offer you simply didn't refuse.<br>
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Providing, of course, that the bill was on someone else. Because caviar, smeared <br>
<br>
on blinis or piled high on baked potatoes, sure didn't come cheap.<br>
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There may have been other things on the menu, but <br>
<br>
no one paid them much heed. This was all about lashings of the black stuff.<br>
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Caviar Kaspia's signature baked potato and caviar: ‘there are <br>
<br>
few better dishes on earth…only the price, at just under £150, <br>
<br>
is ridiculous'<br>
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<br>
Caviar Kaspia popped her final tin about two decades back.<br>
<br>
And that site, hidden down a smart Mayfair mews, was taken over by Gavin Rankin (who used to be the boss), and transformed into the brilliant Bellamy's.<br>
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It prospers to this day. Kaspia, on the other hand, went quiet.<br>
<br>
Until last year, when she reopened as a members' club <br>
<br>
in another Mayfair backstreet. But a £2,000 a year membership fee proved hard <br>
<br>
to swallow, meaning the doors were opened to the great unwashed.<br>
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Which is how we find ourselves sitting in a rather handsome - albeit near empty - dining room, lusciously lavish, under the <br>
<br>
stern gaze of a stern painting of a very stern man. The soft, <br>
<br>
crepuscular gloom is broken up by the glare of table <br>
<br>
lamps, indecorously bright, while a loud soundtrack of indolent, indeterminate beats throbs in the background.<br>
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The whole place is scented with gilded ennui.<br>
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Our fellow diners are two young South Korean women of pale, <br>
<br>
luminescent beauty, clad in diaphanous couture.<br>
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They don't speak, rather communicate entirely via camera phone.<br>
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Pose, click, check, filter, post. Immaculate waiters hover in the shadows.<br>
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We sip ice-cold vodka, and eat a £77 caviar and smoked-salmon Kaspia croque monsieur that tastes far better <br>
<br>
than it ought to. Next door, a large table fills with a glut of <br>
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the noisily, glossily confident.<br>
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We're looked after by a wonderful French lady of such effervescent <br>
<br>
charm and charisma that had she burst into an impromptu performance of ‘Willkommen', we would <br>
<br>
have barely blinked. Baked potatoes, skin as crisp as <br>
<br>
parchment, insides whipped savagely hard with butter and <br>
<br>
sour cream, are a study in tuber art. A cool jet-black splodge of oscietra caviar,<br>
<br>
gently saline, raises them to the sublime. Only the price, at just under £150 each, is ridiculous.<br>
<br>
But there are few better dishes on earth. I'd eat this every day if <br>
<br>
I could. But I can't. Obviously. That's the problem with <br>
<br>
caviar. One taste is never enough.<br>
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About £200 per head. Caviar Kaspia, 1a Chesterfield Street, London W1; caviarkaspialondon.com<br>
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★★★★✩<br>
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My favourite luxury dishes<br>
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Beef wellington sliced and sauced at the table (£150) and <br>
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The dim sum is some of the best in town. But don't miss the <br>
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Superb.<br>
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An invitation to lunch at