It was in The December rain that we fought the half-drowned patrons of the Winter Wonderland to exit Hyde Park Corner station and cross Knightsbridge to enter the swanky Wellesley hotel.
To be fair, Knightsbridge is not our favourite places in London by any manner of means. It seems to be full of people with too much money and very little spark, or others aspiring to be like that.
Certainly the atmosphere at the Jazz lounge was aided by the live music. Though I was slightly disappointed that the piano stool remained unoccupied, we were treated to a pretty accomplished Jazz guitarist and a female cabaret singer who had a very sweet but voice. Anything she lacked in volume was certainly helped by the fact that the room was pretty tiny. They lifted the evening with well known cabaret classics and even a few jazzed up Christmas numbers.
The atmosphere was not helped at all by the small room overcrowded by too many over-attentive waiting staff. It made me feel more like Prince Akeem of Zamunda than a welcome guest. I was only grateful that the toilets were a very long way from the lounge down a corridor and two flights of stairs, or I might not have escaped the Akem treatment.
We were eating from the toptable £30per head three course set menu.
The food was certainly edible and quite pleasant but really nothing special at all. For example, it's always a bonus to get a little amuse bouche before the meal, but when it is basically Philadelphia on toast, the bouche isn't very amused.
The starter was the best course: for me a marinated salmon that had a certain freshness to it that was like a day at the seaside on a plate. My wife had a salad that was better than anything she'd ever had at McDonald's. Perfectly edible but utterly imaginative.
I could bore you with the rest of the food, but why bother? It was fine but dull, and very very small. We left feeling like we'd gone to a reasonable intimate cabaret gig and had some very acceptable snacks. The wine certainly didn't redeem this. Very average wine for £14 per glass must have been at least a 700% markup. We were thankful for the small glass of Prosecco included in the deal..
Unlike the music, none of the food truly satisfied. The greatest disappointment was that in the intimacy of a potentially romantic Jazz lounge, the food certainly didn't sing.
Overall rating 🌟🌟 2/5
