45 Jermyn St.
45 Jermyn St. is luxury department store Fortnum & Mason’s restaurant. The Piccadilly eatery has been keeping busy during lockdown, serving high-end dining by delivery, including £80 beef wellingtons with dauphinoise potatoes and green beans and a selection of wine and Champagne priced between £29 to £275.
Below is an extract from Douglas Blyde’s review, written before lockdown:
David Nichter (formerly of Villandry, The Delaunay, and Alfred’s at Alfred Dunhill) oversees the dusty pink-hued wine list at 45 Jermyn St. as well as managing the restaurant; he also oversees the wine offer at the Hong Kong spinoff, Fortnum’s 181 at Victoria Dockside’s
Neither venue is automatically “fixed” to Fortnum & Mason’s buying strategy, hence the appearance of bottles from 266 Wines at Jermyn Street, an indie importer, “which has depth in Champagne, small French domains and some of the best up-and-coming wineries of northern Spain.” Indeed, the investors in 266 also run The Oystermen restaurant, Covent Garden, of which David is “a big fan” and “came in for their Christmas lunch.”
Although there is no actual sommelier at 45 Jermyn St., the front of house are trained to provide advice and tasting samples to compliment the trolleys featuring kindly priced caviar with freshly scrambled eggs, flambéed lobster spaghetti with artichokes and lemon verbena, a hugely aromatic flambéed beef wellington for two, and (check in advance that it is available) flambéed blackberry and lime Baked Alaska. Other dishes chosen from menus illustrated by Python-esque Dutch artist, Zeloot, may include a truffle toastie with Jacques Carillon Puligny-Montrachet during truffle season, which Nichter calls, “a match made in heaven,” and, with excellent grouse pie, Château Musar red 2002.
