The Devonshire

In at least one respect, The Devonshire is London’s current incarnation of Dorsia; the place to be seen but a place in which it’s almost impossible to be seen due to the clamour for reservations. One failed attempt at booking saw all tables for a Saturday night disappear within 90 seconds of release. When expectations are driven to such extremes by hype, can the experience ever live up to them?

The question is asked of a place that demonstrates the difficulty in predicting what will become ‘hot’ on the capital’s food and drink scene. In truth, there is little revolutionary or innovative going on upstairs in the restaurant and the bar on the ground floor appears to be an homage to the ‘good old-fashioned boozer’.

In this light, the full extent of The Devonshire’s popularity is potentially bemusing but there are undoubtedly appealing elements. The menu was created by Ashley Palmer-Watts, previously head chef at Dinner by Heston Blumenthal. There are show-stopping cuts of beef aged and butchered in the building, which are then cooked over a beechwood grill. There’s a dedicated bakery on site. A handwritten menu featuring dishes like potted shrimp, prawn toast, and lamb hotpot speaks of unpretentious, old-fashioned charm.

It's a style that plays particularly well with a subset of society keen to be seen as people of humble, simple pleasures. Chefs tend to like this kind of cooking too, so influencers like it and then, goodness me, if the rest of us don’t all seem to like it as well. Before you know it, we’re in ‘dinner of dreams’, ‘the hype is real’, ‘Devonshire for the win’ territory right across the social-media board. And nobody can get a table.

But to capture the content for the captions, one must get a table and then reach the restaurant. To achieve the latter, you enter what used to be the dining room of a Jamie’s Italian, navigate some of the strange layout choices made when turning it back into a pub (a bottleneck has been manufactured at the entrance) before climbing a flight of stairs to the left of the bar. On this journey, you may pass snatches of conversation in Irish accents, perhaps a reflection of The Dev’s reputation for the best Guinness in town, and groups that seem slightly too pleased with themselves for being there. There’s an irony in gaggles of beanied lads called Olly from the Home Counties fetishising a place styled on a working-class boozer, given it's the type of pub generally dying out in the rest of the UK as the same demographic abandons it for taprooms and bakeries.

The Devonshire’s restaurant began life as one first-floor dining room that hosts the spectacular wood burner and ember grill, as well as guests. We are shown to one of two additional dining rooms opened on the level above, where the theme of elegant restraint from the original ‘Grill Room’ continues. The phrase ‘white tablecloths’ has become a byword for stuffiness in the restaurant world but The Dev has admirably persevered. A square of brown paper may protect them from ground zero of the mess you’ll make but tablecloths remain pleasant on the eye and the acoustics. Soft lighting abounds, there are brick walls painted white and classic bistro linen half-filling the windows. Jancis Robinson and Richard Brendon’s increasingly ubiquitous wine glass adorns the tables; we make use of ours immediately with a mildly unremarkable Champagne made as an own-label fizz for Jeroboams.

Bread arrives as one big batch of rolls. It's nestled snugly in a deep metal catering tin that evokes the school canteen. The waiter serving us is younger than the average dinner lady was at my school and thankfully under considerably more professional pressure to disguise any hatred she may be feeling. Two brioche-style buns brushed with a faintly malty glaze are torn from the batch and shared between our side plates. I’ve previously whinged about the sourdoughification of the bread offering in restaurants and here, at last, is bread that it is both not sourdough and, in many ways, better than it. It’s squidgy and salty but with the contrast from a hint of sweetness and lacquer from the crust. You put cheese-esque wedges of butter on it and it disappears and then the tin is brought back and you do it all again. The starters haven’t even arrived and the bread may already be sufficient incentive to visit.

When starters of gooey, deftly cooked scallops arrive, they're almost as good as the bread. They come with bacon, malt vinegar and a garnish of what is most instinctively described as ‘scraps’. For those prone to mistaking mushy peas for guacamole, 'scraps' refers to the bits of batter you find in the bottom of a display cabinet in a chippy. When our empty plates are removed, my friend’s closing remark is that the dish tastes like posh fish and chips and that is, in fairness, happily where we’re at.

We have by now become aware that swirling around us is much fretting from, presumably new, waiting staff. When we inquire about a break from the unrelenting cryogenic vortex from a hulking air-conditioning unit suspended from the ceiling over my shoulder, we are looked at like we’ve asked them to stop the sun from setting. An observant waiter mollifies us with extra bread and the promise of more to take home because we’re so visibly scoffing it. We sit, just about placated, talking about what pigs we are.

It transpires that the fêted in-house butchery has run out of ribeye steaks. The story goes that it’s more difficult to grill with beechwood than charcoal and lord knows I need to know if it’s worth the bother, so I order a rare sirloin instead. The steak arrives over-ceremoniously in another large silver tray and is plucked from it with tongues and transferred to my plate. I can tell from how it moves – or doesn’t – in the utensil's clutches that this is an overcooked steak; the texture is stiff and solid. Once sliced open, it's unquestionably the Brexit side of medium. One of the more flustered waiters calls over someone more senior and less panicked to agree that the steak isn’t rare. The crust is wonderfully smoky and savoury but this is incontrovertibly a sad end for both me and the cow. The steak is removed from the bill.

Suet pudding sitting in a glossy gravy is eliciting more positive noises across the table and a side of duck fat chips speaks of Heston-derived triple-cooked expertise. The simple chip regularly flirts with mediocrity in restaurants, so the good ones must be celebrated. Creamed leeks are fine, and not in the way that things are fine when it comes as a one-word message on WhatsApp with a full stop but actually fine. That is to say they're not sufficiently moving to get a hashtag going.

The wine list is divided by grape rather than region, with four varieties boasting eightish options but most of them more like two. It’s a relatively short and safe list with few choices when you consider them by price. A 2018 St Joseph made by Domaine Jolivet is rich, spicy and slightly savoury with a plush, velvety mouthfeel. It’s £70ish and, looking at the other candidates on the page of reds, may be the best choice at any price.

As the hordes begin to thin out towards the end of service, there’s a protracted wait for pudding. The delay is explained by a waiter who switches from wondering silently why we won't leave to wondering aloud what it was we ordered. When we clarify and the kitchen finally hears what it is we want, a Grand Marnier soufflé that’s an amusing act of theatre is delivered; the liqueur goes over it at the table in a blue-flamed spectacle. If you like boozy soufflé, you will undoubtedly like this one.

It's difficult to feel peeved with a restaurant that gives you pillowy bread to take home or one that’s clearly coping with the challenges of new staff and a significant number of extra seats. Nevertheless, even visualising the cooking and service as intended, there is a faint sense of the emperor’s new clothes about The Devonshire. This was a perfectly enjoyable meal, steak excepted, in pleasant surroundings but the hysterics and booking hi-jinx feel more like a study in the madness of crowds than a true reflection of reality.

A few dissenting accounts of visits to The Devonshire have recently emerged online and the venom in some of the comments is indicative of what often happens on social media when someone dares to diverge from orthodox opinion. It reminds me of a time I was told by the organiser of a bad supper club that if I only heard how many other guests had loved the food, I would realise, contrary to my own feelings, that I had in fact loved it myself. If you can get a table at The Devonshire, you may go and feel compelled to curate a six-slide Instagram story extolling its unprecedented genius. However, if you find yourself a little perplexed by all the fuss, take comfort in the knowledge that there are others that feel the same: we may have managed to book seats in the restaurant but our seats on the bandwagon remain unoccupied.