London, England – Reported by Elite Traveler, the private jet lifestyle magazine
Quince, an Ottoman Empire-inspired restaurant, will debut this June at London’s iconic May Fair Hotel. Celebrity Chef Silvena Rowe, accomplished in a trove of gastronomic media—she is a cookbook author, a regular guest on cooking shows and was a food columnist for the Guardian—will direct the Eastern European menu she culled from her Turkish heritage. History is interwoven throughout the culinary undertaking: spiced lamb cutlets with tahini and black truffle sauce pay homage a to the specialty dish of her grandfather’s; an orange blossom baklava is a delicacy from the 1400s said to be the favorite dessert of Roxelane, a concubine-turned-bride of Sultan Suleyman the Magnificent. Contemporary cookery translations include a green herb and spice salmon shawarma that’s cooked on a bespoke vertical grill.
Rowe worked with famed interior designer Martin Brudnizki on the restaurant’s décor. The result is a mélange of turquoises and emeralds as deep as the Bosphorus accented with shades of sienna, like the open-kitchen’s beaten-copper and onyx-topped counter. Intricate pendants consisting of thousands of silk strands cascade above the bar, which serves Lebanese Taxi, a delicious rose water and lavender signature tipple named after an all-female pink taxi service in Lebanon.
For the definitive elite experience, book the chef’s table and enjoy the eight-course tasting menu paired with the Chateau Musar 1993, one of the rare vintages from the extensive wine list and made from grapes grown in Ghazir’s Bekka Valley in Lebanon.
