An invitation to lunch at Caviar Kaspia was, once 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.<br>
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Because caviar, smeared on blinis or piled high on baked <br>
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potatoes, sure didn't come cheap. There may have been other things on the menu, but no one <br>
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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: <br>
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‘there are few better dishes on earth…only the price, at just under £150, is ridiculous'<br>
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Caviar Kaspia popped her final tin about two decades back.<br>
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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>
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Until last year, when she reopened as a members' club in another Mayfair backstreet.<br>
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But a £2,000 a year membership fee proved hard to swallow, meaning <br>
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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>
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stern gaze of a stern painting of a very stern man. The <br>
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soft, crepuscular gloom is broken up by the glare of table lamps, indecorously bright, while a <br>
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loud soundtrack of indolent, indeterminate <br>
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beats throbs in the background. The whole place is scented with gilded ennui.<br>
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Our fellow diners are two young South Korean women of pale, luminescent beauty, clad in diaphanous couture.<br>
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They don't speak, rather communicate entirely via <br>
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camera phone. 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 <br>
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that tastes far better than it ought to. Next door, a large table fills <br>
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with a glut of the noisily, glossily confident.<br>
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We're looked after by a wonderful French lady of such effervescent charm and charisma <br>
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that had she burst into an impromptu performance of ‘Willkommen', we <br>
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would have barely blinked. Baked potatoes, skin as crisp as <br>
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parchment, insides whipped savagely hard <br>
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with butter and sour cream, are a study in tuber art. A cool jet-black splodge of <br>
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oscietra caviar, gently saline, raises them to the sublime.<br>
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Only the price, at just under £150 each, is ridiculous.<br>
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But there are few better dishes on earth. I'd eat this every day if I could.<br>
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But I can't. Obviously. That's the problem with caviar.<br>
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One taste is never enough.<br>
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<strong><u>About £200 per head. Caviar Kaspia, 1a Chesterfield Street, London W1; <br>
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caviarkaspialondon.com</u></strong><br>
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<b><u>★★★★✩</u></b><br>
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<b>My favourite luxury dishes</b><br>
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Tom's pick of the best places to splash the culinary cash in LondonTom's pick of the <br>
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best places to splash the culinary cash in London<br>
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The Ritz<br>
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Beef wellington sliced and sauced at the table <br>
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(£150) and crêpes suzette flambéed with aplomb (£62): Arts de <br>
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la Table is edible theatre at its most delectable.<br>
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<b>theritzlondon.com</b><br>
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Otto's<br>
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Come to this classic French restaurant for the canard or homard à la <br>
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presse (£150-£220 per person); stay for beef tartare (£42), <br>
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foie gras (£22) and poulet de bresse rôti (£190, two courses).<br>
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<i><u>ottos-restaurant.com</u></i><br>
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<b>Sushi Kanesaka</b><br>
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Piscine perfection comes at an eye-watering £420 per person, <br>
<br>
sans booze. But this 13-seat sushi bar shows omakase dining at its very <br>
<br>
finest.<br>
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<br>
<br>
<b>dorchestercollection.com</b><br>
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Min Jiang<br>
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The dim sum is some of the best in town. But don't miss the wood-fired Beijing <br>
<br>
duck (£98) - crisp skin first, then two servings of the meat.<br>
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Superb.<br>
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<br>
minjiang.co.uk<br>
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My webpage; <a href="https://Shorl.com/tynaposuhiga">ค่าจัดดอกไม้งานศพ</a>
An invitation to lunch at