Creating ripples amongst London Restaurateurs
We decided Bob Bob Ricard (BBR) was worthy of mention after hearing this restaurant/bar/club/members place divide opinion. Now whenever something, someone or indeed someplace divides opinion it is a good thing. Surely it is better to polarize then to slip meekly through the net?
BBR can be found on Upper St James Street in Soho and the reason it was bought to attention is they have a price promise. A price promise that states the following ‘ BBR will charge no more then £50 on top of the cost of a bottle of reserve wine’. Now i see you sit up and take note.
It is the kind of place that is frequented by media moguls, companies treating clients and power-broking suits. These people book 4 tables a week and are positive regulars – being drawn back by the power of the press for champagne button at their booths. But is this a place you would want to go?
Lets start with the food – put aside the wine list price promise for now. It is an odd food menu, looking like it has been put together with 1950′s nostalgia firmly in mind. There is an English Breakfast, Breakfast pastries and an array of Eggs. Ok so we are in for Breakfast and there is enough for this to continue into Brunch. There are then lunch dishes ranging from ‘Bob’s Chicken Kiev with Sweetcorn and Potato Mash’ for a slightly OTT £17.50 along with Chateaubriand and Cheeseburgers. I know it is like moving through shelves at your local video shop, from one genre to the next feeling slightly giddy and over roared. In any case, we are in for lunch.
There is many sweets and even afternoon tea options. With the wine promise we will be coming back for dinner so exactly how many meals does BBR look to cater for? Is it looking to move into the echelons of the Wolseley, 4 meals a day?
Right, scattergun menu out of the way, and on to the aforementioned, highly inflammatory, wine. Top London restaurants will add 300 – 400% on to the cost price of a bottle of wine. Leonid Shutov (or Bob) has promised never to charge more than £50 on top of what he paid for it. No matter how exquisite, famous, rare or celebrated the wine is. He see’s himself and the other Bob and Ricard as outsiders from the main stream restaurant scene and as such this excuses, or allows, them to defy the critics and their fellow catering professionals.
For example a 1996 Echezeaux Domaine Romanée-Conti is so fabulous that The Dorchester charges £1,600 a bottle. Shutov has it in at £462. Another is a 1995 Cheval Blanc: to try this at Gordon Ransay’s Claridge’s you are looking at £1,050 and here at BBR bargain prices you are looking at £276.
Now i know this is still not cheap in any way, however it is undeniably cheaper. You don’t have to travel to DFS to get these kind of savings.
I say do your research first and find out what you really want to drink and what is worth the money. How Shutov achieves this is buying as much wine as possible when it comes to market, 400 bottles + of the stuff if he can. Cost go down, good for us. If you are still in doubt, don’t fancy the wine or want to do things the Russian way you can order Russian 1996 vintage Kaufmann in a chilled glass at a max temperature of -18 degrees. Follow this shot with a mouthful of your food and you are doing English eccentricity properly….the Russian way.
Bob Bob Ricard, 1 Upper St James Street, Soho, W1F 9DF. T: 020 3145 1000
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