This month saw a rather unusual pre-pre-launch party for the October opening of Corinthia Hotel London on Whitehall Place.

The event doubled up as an after show party for fashion designer Antonio Berardi (before he headed off to celebrate further at The Love Ball) and took place in a specially constructed pop-up restaurant within the building site complete with hoardings decorated by Nina Chakribati of Cowshed fame.

Super chef Massimo Riocelli was flown in from Rome for the occasion where he runs the Italian capital’s famous La Rossetta restaurant – widely considered to be the best seafood restaurant in the city.  And having worked my way through a disgustingly large selection of his sublime canapes (they just kept coming so who was I to argue?) I found myself entirely in agreement with said consensus!  Cod cerviche, black rice and lentil risotto and salt cod (even better than Russell Norman’s version at Polpo) in case you’re feeling peckish…

Riocelli is set to be chef-patron of one of the Corinthia’s restaurants when the hotel opens for business in the autumn.

But more on the hotel itself: Apart from two speciality restaurants and a destination bar, the hotel will also boast London’s largest luxury spa – all four floors of it!

The original Victorian heritage building was requisitioned by the goverment during the Second World War and cannibalised within an inch of it’s life – there was no place for its stunning plasterwork during wartime austerity and it was all covered over with a false ceiling but has now been revealed in its full glory with a little help from the ubiquitous yet super-talented David Collins.

The pop-up restaurant has also hosted a slew of exclusive invitation only lunches and dinners. Not had an invite? Ah well, you might get lucky but the next stage in the proceedings will be a series of sleepovers in show-bedrooms within the building site! I’m told they’ll have running water, heat and electricity but suspect wi-fi is yet to be installed and a tv ariel come to that. But still, if room-service comes courtesy of Riocelli’s kitchen, I reckon I might be persuaded…

This entry was posted on Tuesday, March 2nd, 2010 at 9:00 am and is filed under Restaurants, Venues. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.