Certain restaurants make you want to root for them. The careworn Italian at the end of your road, struggling to compete with Deliveroo. The wine bar run by a couple of out-of-their-depth twentysomethings. The greasy spoon you return to despite the heartburn. There are a thousand ways to inspire goodwill.
Then there is Dorian. Where others invite sympathy, Dorian invites schadenfreude. It opened in 2022 on the promise of being an ‘anti-Notting Hill restaurant.’ In Notting Hill, but not of it. As a statement of intent, it brought to mind the title of Arctic Monkeys’ first album, Whatever People Say I Am, That’s What I’m Not. Saying you are ‘not a Notting Hill restaurant’ gives customers who prefer not to think of themselves as Notting Hill people – which is to say, rich, safe and inert – permission to come for dinner. Those who do not mind thinking of themselves as ‘Notting Hill people’ will come too, because the fact remains; Dorian, located on Talbot Road, is a restaurant in Notting Hill.
Three years on, one Michelin star and many, many column inches later, Dorian continues to succeed despite the weight of its contradictions, or perhaps – like a tightrope walker holding a long pole – because of them. It is a small, 44-seat neighbourhood bistro where you can spend £250 a head without blinking. It’s clatteringly noisy but curiously intimate, with a long bar and racing-green banquettes. Despite its relaxed feeling, every square inch has been deeply considered. Celebrities – the Beckhams, Lily Allen, Gary Lineker – flock to it even though their table will be turned three times a night along with everyone else’s. Wine lovers come despite a no-prisoners £100 corkage fee that also obliges the drinker to order another bottle of comparable value.
Owner Chris D’Sylva is unafraid to make his case publicly, sometimes seeming mistrustful – even hostile – towards potential business. He keeps a database of his customers, bans influencers and only gives 8.30 pm reservations to a trusted inner circle. His lowest opinions are reserved for anyone who threatens the restaurant with a bad review. ‘It’s these people who think they have a voice,’ he recently told the Mail. ‘They try to extort you, threaten to write bad reviews if they don’t get their way. We just don’t yield to those threats.’
It is a refreshing, if divisive attitude. Convention has it that restaurateurs try to accommodate their customers’ wishes. The clue is in the name: hospitality. D’Sylva disagrees. Not only is the customer not always right; sometimes they are badly wrong and must be corrected. Other proprietors should take note. Far from being put off, Dorian’s clients – given the prices maybe ‘investors’ is more appropriate – repay D’Sylva’s eccentric approach with even more fevered devotion.
‘I think the attitude of restaurants in general needs to change to be more confident, to execute what they believe in rather than what the guests want,’ says Max Coen, the thoughtful and alarmingly youthful head chef charged with ensuring the restaurant puts its money where D’Sylva’s mouth is. ‘All the diner wants is good food and a great vibe. That’s it. The picky ones want all this bullshit but you’ve got to stand firm with what you believe in. That’s what we’ve done since day one.’
He makes no bones about the prices or the punctilious table-turning. ‘It’s purely to keep the business moving forward. If we don’t turn the counter three times a night, the day doesn’t work. It’s pointless. It’s expensive but we only buy the best of the best and the wine list speaks for itself.’
On a dreary Wednesday night in early March, Dorian glows with activity. Coen and his team send out a series of irritatingly good dishes – well aware that their defiant attitude lives or dies by the food on the plate. ‘It relies on execution to a very high level, otherwise it all falls apart,’ he says. ‘We’re fully booked but I never take it for granted. I’m always on my toes to try to keep evolving the menu. The pressure is important to keep us at that level and keep putting myself outside the comfort zone.’
One of Dorian’s cunning tricks is that the menu offers diners several paths. Really, it is at least two restaurants in one. The boomer fund manager will murmur approvingly at the Fred-Flintstone style steak seared at 600 degrees, thickly sliced and set down before him; his more refined daughter will marvel at the saucing. Everyone will order the moreish bite of rosti with caviar – because everyone does.
‘You could come in three times a week and have six oysters, steak and potatoes and a bottle of red, or you could delve into the complexity of the menu – the Anjou pigeon or the tongue skewers,’ Coen says. ‘The idea is that when you look at them it’s something you want to tuck into. It’s never overly beautiful, just chic and delicious.’
At the time of writing, he and D’Sylva have just opened Urchin, a second site nearby that puts a similar energy into Japanese cooking. They are part of a wave of London restaurateurs succeeding by paying no attention to Instagram consensus and trusting their instincts instead. There is no formula beyond confidence and execution. In Finsbury Park, Ed McIlroy saw in a run-down chippy, Tollington’s, the potential for a Barcelona-style tapas bar. David Carter went on holiday to Greece and came up with the idea for Oma and Agora, a two-floor celebration of Greek-ish cooking beneath rattling trains at London Bridge. Dorian might not want to think of itself as a ‘Notting Hill restaurant’, but in its brash contradictions, eccentricity, and punchy prices, it feels distinctly of its city. It might not last forever, but it is quite the ride.
