Not original, naming a restaurant after its street – there are loads like that in London. But when it’s as nice as this… Well, why not? LP’s villagey part of Kensington is festooned with flowers in summer, and its rows of mansions are immaculate: this poshest outpost of the D&D London restaurant group fits in.
It has the quirks and tics that the Michelin inspectors look for (it received a star in 2013), but our recent visit showed irregularities. The carpets were a bit scuffed, for instance, and the men’s toilets are inhibitively tiny. Towards the end of a late lunch booking, we experienced rushed service. The peculiarly shaped series of rooms works better after dark, when the charcoal walls and spectral artworks lend gravitas.
Standards of food are generally high; cooking is an accessible and inventive French/British marriage. A starter of salmon with mooli and sweet little cubes of pressed apple was made special by a sorbet-like scoop of iced horseradish, although hake with peas, broad beans and lettuce tasted too vegetal and ‘green’. Launceston Place is a restaurant that makes living in Launceston Place even nicer than it undoubtedly already is, but a visit from further afield isn’t always rewarded.