Review 2020

The Davies and Brook dining room evokes the auditorium of an Art Deco cinema, the bar where the stage would be. Trolleys promising at-table experiences such as the removal, by red hot callipers, of the necks of prized bottles (you get to keep the cork), are opened by wine director Di Bella and his seven-strong team. Born to restaurateur parents, his father Sicilian and mother French, Di Bella gained much floor experience as a youth before formally studying at France’s first sommelier school, Tain-l’Hermitage.

He went on to work at Alain Ducasse, Monaco, Marcus Wareing at The Berkeley, then alongside Guillem Kerambrun at Caprice Holdings.

On joining the Claridge’s project last summer, Di Bella spent a busy two weeks with the sommelier team at garlanded chef Daniel Humm’s New York mothership, Eleven Madison Park, working with wine director Cedric Nicaise, whose 15 years of buying has resulted in a list of 4,800 bins. Di Bella’s list, currently poised at around 1,800 bins, is slimmer, though he vows to ensure this “drastically evolves to 3,600 bins”.

Di Bella expended considerable thought in ensuring his team are “wide and eclectic” and “fit the culture of being nice and caring”. He adds: “It’s the most well-oiled experience I’ve seen, and people truly care about what they do, from porter to assistant server and GM – and you feel it on the floor.”

The first wine book in the UK to be realised using BinWise, a Californian layout, stock control and ordering system that automatically updates the website, Di Bella’s wine book is predominantly organised by grape variety. All-encompassing, it is in part a love letter to the Rhône Valley, with an increasing tally of North American wines, whereby flights of Harlan and Mayacamas nestle alongside Grace & Favour fizz from Vermont, US fizz and Black Sheep Finds from Holus Bolus, Santa Barbara. Acknowledging Humm’s Swiss heritage, expect the odd Swiss wine and cider – and a Swiss-movement clock dominates the seemingly serene, shiny, daylight flooded kitchen where particularly fortunate diners could encounter a private audience with Estonian head chef Dmitri Magi and Di Bella as part of their meal.

A large selection of carafes and wines-by-the-glass appeal to lunchtime diners, and indeed solo diners who clearly feel comfortable dining with the sound of Miles Davis for company.

Di Bella might pour young Jalousie from Domaine du Closel, Savennières with virtuous-looking, impeccably textured carrot salad with sunflower seeds, horseradish and pickled quail egg, “to cut through the natural sweetness of the carrot”, and super clean-cut Guinevere Chardonnay from Kent’s Gusbourne with variations of artichoke, mushroom and fennel, then bigger Ampodium, Côte-Rôtie (René Rostaing) with 14-day dry-aged, lavender-scented Creedy Carver duck – “the British answer to Peking duck”, he jokes. Finish with the joyous milk-and-honey soft serve, ideally with marmalade-coloured and scented Suduiraut Sauternes.

As for the lockdown, Di Bella says he spent more time with his family than in the past decade – and stopped smoking.

Instagram: @daviesandbrook

By Douglas Blyde