BEN KEITH’S BLOG: ‘Ametsa’

Blog, I made my way, this evening, with Belindabelle, to check out ‘Ametsa’, a super-duper and high profile ‘ooly-fooly’ Spanish restaurant in Belgravia.

On arrival, we found that it was located in one of these soulless but high-end and modern capital-city hotels. Very, very few hotels can pull off a buzzy bar, as they just don’t get busy or established enough. The Sanderson (very impressive but not discreet), The Dorchester (too many in-your-face brasses hanging around), Claridges (but certainly not always buzzy), The Savoy (the best, for me), and The Carlton Tower (not for me at all), would be some of the few that get away with it.

At the back of the building sits the restaurant; Ametsa. This is a Basque word. For those that don’t know, the Basque country is an area of northern Spain that craves independence (yes, that old story again) and actually has their own language, in fact, the oldest language in the world. ‘Ametsa’ means dream. And I must say, this really was a very nice experience indeed.

Being amateur ‘oolies’, we thought we better just go for the taster-menu. That way we knew it’d be small-portionsville but at least we’d get to have a go at most of the menu.

For the type of place that could be hideously pretentious, but wasn’t, the staff really were delightful. They maintained a helpful and friendly manner at all times and were continually passing by to chat about Spain, the fantastic menu, and the Michellin star they had just won, after being in business, in London, for only seven months. I must say, all of the waiters at Ametsa had a tremendous team attitude and pride for what they were doing. Good luck to them. It felt a bit like being in Broadmoor though, as there was practically one waiter per diner!

I said to Belindabelle after the entrees, that I was very worried the Portions Police would have to be called in, and I would have to order another full main-course, after finishing the entire taster-menu. She BEGGED me not to. Blog, she begged; it really was a sight to see. The prospect of me being an even bigger neanderthial and even more uncool than usual, in such an establishment, really was scaring her to the core.

The food was excellent. At a ‘oner’ a head plus drinks, it should have been, but it was, and that’s more than can be said for some of their competitors. I recommend the place but it doesn’t surprise me that many of these types of restaurants don’t survive. People may try it when its new and trendy but its just not going to get regulars like a very good, but ‘localified’ Italian or Chinese. It was a great experience, and I admired the art of their ‘game’, but a bit too much of a performance to be repeated many times, for me.

In other news:

Came home afterwards and to try and fill up a bit, immediately tucked into a dietary late feast of dried-mango, satsumas, a nectarine, and a large camomile tea. We then settled down and watched a truly cracking film; Little Miss Sunshine. I’m not normally a fan of comedies but this was funny in its tragedies and had quite a real and cutting edge to it. I really warmed to the characters and the story, will probably watch it again, and would certainly recommend it to others. There were several great quotes that really did stop me in my tracks, my favourite being ‘Losers are people who are so afraid of not winning, they don’t even try.’. Talk about summing up a corporate wage-slave in one!!

Have a good weekend, Ben x