A restaurant which mixes fast-food classics with high-end luxury ingredients opened this week within the Lowndes hotel in Belgravia. Billed as a ‘Bistrot Américain’, Avi is from the team behind The Prince Arthur nearby, a traditional pub now serving upmarket Basque seafood.
Chef Joshua Conte, a former soldier who has worked at Heston Blumenthal’s pub The Crown, Chiltern Firehouse and The Dorchester, has created a menu on which fried chicken and fish and chips are zhuzhed up with caviar, costing £160 per portion if you order the full 100g.
‘Le Big Mac’ burger is topped with truffle (£46), while the ‘Bodrum Lahmacun Royal’ sees a thin flatbread covered with spiced lamb mince, yoghurt, herbs and a coating of 24-carat gold leaf, at £80 a shot.
Pasta dishes include a Spicy Tomato Tequila Paccheri or Red Claw Lobster Linguine; fish and seafood include Carabineros with a spicy butter, Mozambique Squid on a bed of peri-peri sauce or Sea Bass Tom Yum; while three different types of beef are available from the grill – Cote de Boeuf, Fillet Steak with Smoked Bone Marrow, and Australian Wagyu.
Ossietra caviar is also available for breakfast, alongside lobster, trout gravadlax and a more standard range of egg dishes, artisanal sourdough breads and muffins.
The 45-cover dining room has been kitted out with rustic wicker chairs, white table cloths and low lighting, and has its own dark-panelled corner bar serving classic and contemporary cocktails – including the Tsar, featuring Belvedere vodka topped with caviar, pickled onions and an olive.