Alex Webb on Park Lane review: the MasterChef is onto another winner

Alex Webb came to national attention in 2020 after winning MasterChef: The Professionals, the spin-off of the long-running BBC series originally for ambitious amateurs.

Even in The Professionals, it’s the mix of competitors that make it an absorbing watch: from the mavericks that forever seem a pinch of something away from genius or disaster; to the classicists who quietly reach the summit by making it all look so easy.

Webb stood out for both his originality and consistency, and at his first permanent restaurant residency at the InterContinental London Park Lane hotel you can taste for yourself the kind of honest but highly refined dishes that took him all the way to MasterChef glory three years ago.

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

The atmosphere

In contrast to some of the more historic hotels in and around Mayfair, the InterContinental has more of a corporate flavour. But that doesn’t make Webb’s restaurant any less of a classy retreat in a part of town known for its extravagance.

It took me a while to realise I was in a far more intimate space than it looked. The vast mirrored wall at the far end of the dining room was a clever trick and, thankfully, the only illusion of the evening. It was a smoothly delivered experience from beginning to end, starting with the space we settled into.

High-end restaurants around here can feel impersonal, but with the help of a polished and welcoming team, Webb has managed to create an environment that has a lot in common with his food: cool, classic and inflected with individuality.

The food and drink

Diners can choose three courses or the immersive seven-course tasting menu. Whichever you decide, there’s a wine paired specifically for each course so you won’t need to spend much time navigating an extended list.

I ordered from the three-course menu after some exquisitely presented canapées from “land, sea and tree” arrived. This included a deep fried clam on its shell with caviar; a pleasing little tartlet and a crisp branch-shaped cracker on a rugged piece of driftwood that was deceptively flavoursome. Dry ice may be a fine dining trope but it was hard not to enjoy the theatre that it brought to our table.

In MasterChef, Webb stood out for his flair with fish and seafood, which inspired his winning menu in the final. Unusually for a finalist it featured no meat, making his triumph even more impressive and the prospect of visiting his restaurant especially exciting for a pescatarian like me.

I ordered the tuna tartare with avocado purée, crispy capers, citrus salad, and squid ink cracker to start. The quality of the tuna was exceptional, as it should be, but it was the delicate accompaniments that lifted it to a new level: the citrus salad did just enough to make the whole thing sing, as did the 2019 Pinot Blanc from Alsace.

While I didn’t try my companion’s beef carpaccio with pickled shimeji, pine nut purée, truffle, and sourdough croutons, he described it as containing “deftly harmonious flavours that could easily overpower each other in less capable hands”. If that sounds like the kind of thing Marcus Wareing would say, I can hear Gregg Wallace saying something like “right on the money”.

On the menu, Webb didn’t try to repeat his knockout trout main dish from the final, but the Atlantic cod with sea herbs, onion purée, pickled onions, crispy potato and champagne sauce displayed the same level of finesse. What a fabulous dish: thick flakes of beautifully cooked, delicately seasoned cod met the punchier flavours of the sea and land, crowned by another dollop of Exmoor caviar. I might have liked to taste a little more champagne in the sauce, but the superb 2020 Joseph Drouhin Chablis more than compensated for this otherwise near perfect main course.

My companion stayed inland with the heartier Lake District farmers’ grilled pork chop with pearl barley risotto, salt-baked carrot, tarragon vinegar gel, apple compote, crispy pork skin and pork jus. I tried his earthy but floral 2021 Saumur-Champigny Cabernet Franc from the Loire Valley and nearly ordered a rogue glass for myself.

Alex Webb on Park Lane has joined the growing list of restaurants that have given me a dessert course that left the longest lasting impression, with its banana soufflé with caramelised pecan, caramel sauce and banana ice cream. Many diners will be tempted by the dark chocolate sphere with praline and feuilletine, orange gel and Madagascan vanilla ice cream, but take my advice and order the soufflé when your main course arrives (it takes around 20 minutes). I’m certain you’ll be left just as effusive at its pillowy luxury as I still am.

To borrow a familiar MasterChef adjective, this was a showstopper. And with this being the work of a winner, it made sense that it was that cheffiest of puds – a soufflé – where the meal peaked.

The verdict

Winning MasterChef was big and – based on this evidence – even bigger things clearly lie ahead for Alex Webb. But don’t feel like you need to have watched him lift that coveted trophy to visit his first restaurant. Neither do you need to have watched MasterChef at all. All that really matters is how good the food and the experience is, and both far exceeded my expectations – and that’s coming from someone who did watch him go all the way. And if for nothing else, please just visit for that soufflé.

Dominic Kocur was a guest of Alex Webb on Park Lane. InterContinental London Park Lane, One Hamilton Place, Park Lane, London, W1J 7QY; intercontinental.com