CUT at 45 Park Lane, Mayfair

No matter how long I live in London, I’ll never feel comfortable in Mayfair. Even though I went to boarding school, then Cambridge University and am so well to do that one of my best friends is a swan, I will always fell uneasy about entering any restaurant with a postcode that begins with W1. I don’t know what it is that causes this feeling of inferiority. Perhaps it was something that F Scott Fitzgerald wrote: ‘Let me tell you about the very rich. They are different from you and me.’ I think it’s the fact that Mayfair restaurants have doormen, staff situated at the entrance guarding the castles of privilege from arriviste trash like myself.

You need someone who feels at home in places like this, someone who doesn’t cower before these bald-headed, black-coat wearing custodians but who nods gallantly and gets a yielding nod back. It was like this when I visited the CUT at 45 Park Lane, just a few metres away from the Dorchester hotel and a horse’s sneeze away from Hyde Park. Not only does it come with a W1 postcode but is also the main restaurant of the world-renown Wolfgang Puck. My companion who gave the all-clear to the doormen assured me that this was the best steak restaurant in London and I nimbly trotted in after him.

The décor of the restaurant is that simple elegance that the well-off aim for and the not so-well off find intimidating. There are high ceilings and beguiling sculptures dotted all about the place.

Given the reputation of the restaurant for steak, my companion and I were rather cursory when it came to our starters, such was the rush to get onto the main event. I went for the roasted baby beets with goat’s cheese whilst my companion kept matters liquid with an Austrian Oxtail Bouillon. My choice was a good match of flavours and textures but along with my companion, we were racing through the first course in order to give ourselves plenty of time to think about the meat.

When it comes to making your choice, it’s best to put your hand over the part of the page where the price is visible as the blood may drain from your face and your brain in order to stop you seeing how much you’ll be ponying up. It’s helpful to just keep whispering to yourself, ‘I’m here for the experience, I’m here for the experience. And attachment to material goods corrodes the soul.’

With this mantra reverberating my ears, I plumped for the 35-day-old rib eye steak from Kansas whilst my companion was in a parochial mood when selecting the filet mignon from Devon. When it came to chowing down on our respective choices, there was an almost sepulchral silence between us, such was the majesty of the texture, the cut, the flavours, the way in which the meat made its home on our teeth before dashing away.

When it came to paying, the pair of us allowed ourselves one look each at the bill before settling up. Such was the quality of the meal that for a few minutes after leaving, I felt that I actually belonged in Mayfair.

The Cut
3 Tilney Street
Mayfair
W1K 1BJ