Chucs away

Matthew Steeples reviews Chucs – He describes it as being “Mayfair’s answer to Venice’s Cip’s Club” and lauds its simple brilliance

If one had to compare Chucs in Mayfair’s Dover Street to a person, it would be Dickie Greenleaf from The Talented Mr Ripley. Debonair to its core, this minute restaurant is the personification of sophistication and styled in the fashion of a classic Riva.

Owned by a collective that includes a trio of ‘hedgies’ and the marketing maven Charles Finch, Chucs is far from cheap but given its location, you wouldn’t expect anything else. An all-day menu focuses on classic Italian dishes but also features a club sandwich (£15) and a burger (£16).

Having now dined at Chucs – which even has its own adjoining clothes store – on a couple of occasions, the highlights are most definitely the superb tagliolini cacio e pepe (£15/£20) and the cobb salad with chicken (£18). The latter delights and is presented in the form of a wheel that provides a cacophony of colour on the plate. My American companion was so delighted by it that she trilled: “In all my days of eating cobb salads, I’ve never seen something so spectacular”.

With other dishes including slow-cooked sea bass (£31) and beef fillet straccetti (£33), the menu is reminiscent of Cip’s Club in Venice. It is perfectly balanced to suit both casual and formal dining and with a team headed by the charming Lucio Mamprin, the service is second to none.

Wines start at £28 for a 2014 Rosso Piceno and £33 for a 2013 Muller-Thurgau and rise to £570 for a 1999 Chateau Mouton Rothschild. Dickie Greenleaf would certainly feel at home.

Chucs, 30b Dover Street, London, W1S 4NB. Telephone: +44 (0) 20 3763 2013.

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