La Cave Wine Boutique and Private Rooms

Located across the cobbled courtyard from its popular mother restaurant Hush, La Cave is essentially an up-market wine boutique with an edge. The Mayfair shop doubles up as a private function room offering intimate meals and innovative wine tasting sessions for up to 12 and 20 people respectively. Ensconced within wine-racked walls housing some 250 rare and distinctive varieties you really do feel at one with the subject matter.

In-house wine expert Tim Kitchener-Smith took our group though an appraisal accompanied by sumptuous canap?s: gravlax on pumpernickel, rare peppered tuna on foccacia, wild mushroom tartlets, not to mention that foie gras with fig jam. On the agenda was a comparison between the Old and New Order of wine: French Burgundy verses American Chardonnay in the white corner, French Rhone against Australian Shiraz in the red ? separated by a welcome cheese-tasting interlude to prepare our palettes.

La Cave is a splendid preposition whether you want to buy wines, try wines or dine with wines. The French-influenced menu has serious appeal while any bottle bought during a meal magnanimously arrives at shop price, with no mark-up. Deep in the bleak mid-winter, this special enclave boasts a warm and palatable escape from the obstreperous intemperance of festive parties, while the prime location will make La Cave a sure hit for classy outdoor summer drinking.

But perhaps the best service that La Cave offers to its clients is an extraordinary intimacy with its staff. Tim, munificent in his sharing of wine trivia, clearly knows his Riesling from his Gewurztraminer and the running commentary serves as much to embolden as it does to entertain. Currently popping the cork on his ingeniously titled tome Grape Times in France, this genial and plenipotentiary sommelier is like the Jeremy Clarkson of his field.