Tonight:
2°c
David Sexton's rating
The Orange is a faithful servant to Sloanes
By
David Sexton
4 Mar 2010
Some restaurants fit so well into their locales that they seem almost a natural outcrop. If I’d ever walked down Pimlico Road before this week, I’d blanked out the memory. Traumatised, no doubt. Here we have the epicentre of super-Sloane décor. The entire street sells the look. The windows are full of giant antique toy cars, planes, yachts. There are lots of humidors. Simple-minded sub-Impressionist pictures of whimsical scenes. Urns. Ammonites. Bright yellow chaise longues.
Here is David Linley Furniture, showing just what wrong you can do to wood, if you spare no expense. The Partagas Humidor (£35,775) includes the cigars, whereas you have the fun of filling the Watch Mansion (£6,970) yourself.
There is Daylesford Organic, flogging a fantasy of bleached-out gardening, with super-cute trowels and dibbers and sculptural watering cans. The big green glass bottle, £635, the exquisitely soft little sheepskin jerkin, £475. And look — there’s Nicky Haslam HQ! And just around the corner, forever unchanged, La Poule au Pot.
And now, crowning the show, we have The Orange, a great creamy wedding-cake of a building, once upon a time the Royal Orange Theatre, now a sister establishment to The Thomas Cubitt in Elizabeth Street and The Pantechnicon in Motcomb Street, gastropubs so swishy that they make the finest restaurants blush.
The décor is a perfect fit. Wooden floors, giant sash windows. Stripped woodwork, lightly distressed cornices. A creamy, beigey tone throughout, some tinted yellow, some green. Great natural light during the day, brass lamps at night. Loos that might plausibly have been in a private home nearby.
The furniture is all bleached and scrubbed wood, odd bits and pieces. A coal-effect gas fire roars. Splendid napkins, of course. Downstairs, there’s a big dining room, a bar looking into an open kitchen, and a snug little area around the corner remniscent of a scullery. Upstairs it’s a bit more formal, though nothing like as grand and comfy as The Pantechnicon.
The clientele suit the place too, the confident kind who hold their heads up high above their cheery jumpers. One chap boasted a velvet blazer with contrast piping, an effect last seen in a staging of PG Wodehouse. On Monday, a pair of athletes were lunching in tennis whites.
And the food? It’s not your common or garden comfort food. No, this is nothing less than nursery, dreamily delivered. Smoked haddock, leek and potato cake, citrus crème fraîche (£8.50) sounds rather complicated but was just two wholly unchallenging, if rather dry, fishcakes. A green salad that included roasted red pepper, cherry tomatoes, cucumber and fresh, bland goat’s curd by way of cheese (£7.50) was perfectly fresh and as inoffensive as they come.
A Lemon Sole special (£16.50) was a well-baked fish in an enjoyably winey and buttery sauce with tiny capers and snippings of chive, with three plain spuds. Braised rabbit and green olive ragout (£14.50) was tender and well-flavoured if a bit garlicky for nanny, served with ribsticking cheesey gnocchi. A “wood-fired pizza” of chicken, pancetta, sage and pecorino (£13.50 — ie, £15.19 billed on its own, including service) was bland, even twee you might say, with a slightly pastryish base, chilli oil being offered to perk it up for any riproarers in the party.
A pint of Adnams (£3.50) was just as good as in Southwold. The wine list, opening at £16 a bottle, is short and useful, though our 2005 Madiran Domaine Berthoumieu (£30) was still as tough as old boots, that being the regular boast of the Tannat grape.
“Proudly serving our local community,” says Cubitt House, the family-run owner. It’s true too. Their pubs are absolute strongholds of Knightsbridge and Belgravia, expertly and assiduously delivering to their clientele exactly what they want. For lesser mortals, best enjoyed in the spirit of an anthropological expedition, I’d say.
Details are correct at the time of publication - please check with venue before booking.
Reader views (12)
We recently had sunday lunch in the orange and I am really surprised to read david's comments. The food was fantastic and the friendly staff and beautiful decor created a wonderful environment in which to enjoy it.
We will definitely be eating there again when we are in the area.
- Errol, London, 29/03/2010 14:36
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One wonders,Reg, why restaurants bother to sell wines that need two hours to breathe.Wouldn't you agree?
- Alan, Wimbledon, 10/03/2010 14:00
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The Orange does what it says on the tin - a good gastropub for locals, in an attractively converted / restored building. A place to go for a good value, dress down supper rather than somewhere to be analysed for the minutiae of its menu or its sociology. So the reviewer needs to get a life. Oh and if he knew his wines better, he'd know that the Berthomieu, as a tannat, ideally needs uncorking / decanting for up to two hours to soften it...and that it probably does'nt drink that well after a pint of Adnams?
- Reg Hoare, Battersea Park, London, 08/03/2010 22:51
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I too am in agreement with Cynthia, Tarquin, Mary and Alan....Why do so many reviewers feel the need to attack an area, for being an area? Why does a beautiful area need to be analysed and critiqued in such a way? That focus is now becoming somewhat tedious! Belgravia/Knightsbridge/Pimlico are beautiful areas, which should be embraced for the originality and the beauty that it provides to all Londoners and visitors alike. I regularly go to The Orange, Cubitt and Panty and am always so impressed by the food, the service, the interior and the service that it provides to all. Thank you to Gabriel and to your fellow partners for injecting life and a community feeling back into our local community.
- Oriana Dupuche, London UK, 08/03/2010 18:29
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Been twice to the Orange now and the food is very ordinary indeed, service is terrible too. go to The Ebury next door for a far superior experience!
- Tom, London, 05/03/2010 11:40
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This pub is a welcome addition to the area.....very fun place to go although can get a little busy at times around the bar which I suppose is no bad thing for trade or atmosphere. Good party room as well.
- Arthur, London, 05/03/2010 10:23
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I'm not too sure what the reviewer expects to find in one of the most expensive cities in the world? Expensive streets and expensive shops would seem to be fairly par for the course. The Orange isn't just a 'swishy gastropub' but a clever combination of various pub/dining experiences all under one roof, just sit/stand, drink/eat where it suits. This particular 'lesser mortal' has enjoyed a few visits to The Orange, and although I too daren't shop on the Pimlico Road I'd happily return for some more venison stew and Adnams!
- William, Wandsworth, London, 04/03/2010 21:57
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Just a little note of correction. The Royal Orange Theatre was not, in fact, based in the Orange, but across the road on the site of what is now St. Barnabas Church. For further details, please refer to the Westminster Archives - the entry is free!
- Maria Errata, London, 04/03/2010 21:50
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This guy sounds like he's used to reviewing ultra-posh restaurants not gastropubs. I've been to the Orange and it's a place to be enjoyed not analyzed. Its like sitting at your own dinner table or on your couch at home. It's comfortable and inviting, and so is the food. Its not meant to be a special occasion, but one of those places you go a few nights a week. It is a light in the darkness of many dreary pubs, and a bastion of sanity amidst the overpriced fare of the rest of the area. It doesn't need a thesaurus to explain itself and is definitely not twee, whatever the hell that is.
- Alan Dumas, London, UK, 04/03/2010 21:27
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Go Cynthia! You're so right. Those chest-beating leftie Eugenicists will never know what it's like to go through life unimpeded by original thought, unlike you.
- Tarquin Thimbleton-Smythe, Eton, Windsor, 04/03/2010 16:03
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I'm not even sure it has anything to do with being rich or poor. It is merely a rather narrow minded, embittered look at a world that the reviewer - for whatever reason - feels excluded from. I think it is rather sad really that someone's vision and appreciation of beautiful things can be so clouded by a personal sense of inadequacy.
- Rachel, London, 04/03/2010 15:30
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Oh dear.This reviewer's social chippiness is showing. Something wrong with being rich? Do we all have to be mediocre? Rich and poor and "the middling folk" - thats the way it is, and that's the way it always will be. Socialist experiements have all failed to prevent ambition and success - they go against human nature and I may say, human rights. Leave the rich alone - we need them.
- Cynthia, London UK, 04/03/2010 13:47
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