The Cuckoo Club restaurant is nestled behind the main reception on the ground floor. For any of you that have been to the Cuckoo Club, and not seen the restaurant I suggest that before reading on you contact the restaurant on (+44 (0)20 7287 4300) and get a table booked for next week. The large and airy room; swathed in beautiful deep purples, was the venue for one of the best meals I have had in a very long time.

As I have said in previous reviews, the formula for a successful restaurant is outstanding service, coupled with wonderful food. Sounds simple, but as there are a number of restaurants closing around us right now, it clearly isn’t as simple as all that. The Cuckoo Club manages to tread the path between both aspects expertly. I have not experienced such good service since the glory days of the Ivy, and at times it even made the service at my Club look a bit shoddy!

Before any food menus are brought, cocktail menus are whisked under your nose. My first thought was, this seems like a cynical measure to increase the bill. That is until the serious intent of the cocktails becomes clear. We started with a vodka, beetroot, rose, apple and lemon number. Cocktails are taken very seriously here. Gavin Forbes led us through what we were drinking (The first cocktail we tried was created by Gavin, and had secured him victory in a Russian Vodka competition).

Food menus were brought as we were enjoying our beetroot concoction, and chose to leave things in the hands of the chef Rupert Blease. This was a very wise move owing to the fact that the chef’s CV reads like a dream career. He started out with Raymond Blanc, before moving with half the Blanc brigade to Texture, based in Portman Square. He has also worked for the great chef Thomas Keller, at the French Laundry, and Per Se.

The menu has been recrafted by Blease, and inspiration has clearly been taken from the great chefs he has worked with. The first course consisted of varying forms of tomato, sun dried, roasted and fresh, coupled with a wonderfully creamy mozzarella, micro-leaves, and basil emulsion, all served on a black slate. This was quite simply summer on a plate, and a vision of beauty. Good quality ingredients, treated with care, and plated up beautifully.

Cold salad of Bulga wheat, mango, and king crab arrived next. 3 Large pieces of claw adorned my plate and were yieldingly soft and tender. My dining companion W, was presented with a delightful foir gras dish. The soft creamy liver worked well with a brioche crumble to give some texture to what can often be an overly dull starter. In this case it was pitted against spiced pears and everything on the plate sat together very comfortably.

My main was a special of the day; sea bass served with candied endive and wilted spinach. The sweet and sour endive worked brilliantly with a perfectly seasoned and well executed piece of sea-bass and provided one of my highlights for 2009! The chef has a lightness of touch, borne out by his training that means dishes do not come slathered in cream and butter, but are light and summery, with use of good quality oils; the only butter appearing was the piece that arrived with the rustic bread at the start of the meal.

A break was required before pudding could be tackled, and it was well worth the wait. I was given a Tonka bean panna cotta. Panna cotta is so often one of two things, a watery under powered fast melting milky mess, or gelatinous muck that resembled a breast implant, and tastes one would imagine remarkably similar. This panna cotta was served in a glass, perfectly set with vanilla singing through, a chocolate cream on top and pistachio ice cream on the side.

W was given a rhubarb muffin, with poached rhubarb, and rosewater ice-cream. This was about as far away from a stodgy Starbucks muffin as it is possible to be. The wonderfully soft muffin worked brilliantly with all the other elements. Pudding can often be forgotten about by chefs, left to a pastry chef, so they can get on with the serious cooking, but these had clearly been well thought out and were a triumph.

Instead of wine we opted to have a different cocktail with each course, as well as a few extras appearing (Thank goodness the bar staff were kind enough to print out a list of the cocktails we tried!) Of particular note was a mix of bacon infused bourbon, raison, and hazelnut infused chocolate, which weirdly, really did work. W particularly enjoyed his clean and refreshing yellow pepper tini (as I have taken to calling it), consisting of yellow pepper syrup, orange vodka, lemon, apple and rose syrup.

The bar staff come up with ideas and ask the kitchen to come up with homemade syrups and infusions to great effect. This is clearly a relationship between front of house and kitchen that really works. The joint favourite cocktail of the evening had to be the ‘Gavino’ a mix Gavin came up with consisting of Blueberries, crème de cassis, gin, Shiraz and lime sugar, it was sheer perfection!

The 3 course supper costs £48, and is worth every penny for cooking of this standard. Numerous extras appear throughout the meal, whether it be; olive oil popcorn, stuffed choux pastry, or a sorbet cocktail.

This is a perfect pre-night out venue, or restaurant in its own right coupling great service, and food of stella quality.