Mazarine

Mazarine, a predominantly seafood restaurant, is on the ground floor of the Mandarin Oriental Hotel in Hanover Square. It opened in December 2025. The head chef is Thierry Laborde, formerly head chef at Le Gavroche and also having worked at Louis XV in Monaco. Mr Laborde grew up in the Landes region of France. The dining room is very smartly decorated, with well-spaced tables. There was some French pop music as background, but at a low volume. The restaurant name, incidentally, is a deep blue colour, hinting at the ocean to reflect the seafood theme. The menu was a la carte rather than a tasting format. 

The wine list had 185 labels and ranged in price from £62 to £3,200, with a median price of £180 and an average markup to retail price of 3.9 times, which makes it one of the priciest wine lists in London. Sample references were Same River Twice VdF 2020 at £66 for a bottle that you can find in the high street for £19, Meulenhof “Devon Schiefer” Riesling Mosel 2021 at £76 compared to its retail price of £17, and Rolet Chardonnay Arbois 2023 at £96 for a wine that will set you back £25 in the high street. For those with the means, there was Chateau d’Esclans “Les Clans” 2021 at £265 compared to its retail price of £70, and La Mission Haut Brion 2017 at £760 for a wine whose current market value is £215. There were some fairly shocking individual markups. Grosset Polish Hill Riesling 2025 is a £42 wine in the shops, here listed at £300, over eight times its retail (never mind wholesale) price. 

The bread was very good, served warm. This had a good crust and excellent texture. It was bought in from a  Covent Garden baker called St George. We tried a few snacks. Smoked eel croquette was the star for me, with a crisp coating and a centre of eel, Comte cheese, lovage and horseradish. The gentle bite of horseradish cut nicely through the richness of the cheese, while the aromatic flavour of the lovage provided some contrast to the eel. I particularly liked the excellent balance here. There were several strong flavours, but they felt harmonious rather than as if they were each fighting to dominate the others. Croque monsieur with black truffle and lobster had little toasted sandwiches with a pleasing truffle aroma, whose woodland fragrance worked nicely with the lobster. Oscietra Caviar on toasted brioche had good brioche but suffered from being from Exmoor Caviar, one of the least good caviar suppliers, whose caviar often has a slightly muddy texture. I have to say the version today was better than some that I have had from them, but even so. I gather that they are in the process of changing their caviar supplier, and if this happens, then the dish would likely improve. The canapes average 15/20, but the eel croquette was higher than this.

Pissaladiere is a flatbread from around Nice, a bread dough base topped with slow-cooked, caramelised onions, black olives and anchovies. It is rather like a pizza without the tomatoes. The kitchen here produced a sort of tribute to that dish that it called Pissalada (£22). This had cured sardines in place of anchovies, olives from Lucques, caramelised onions and a little bread roll. I’m not entirely sure that this worked as well as the original dish. The sardines were good, and the onions were excellent, but the bread felt like a bit of an afterthought rather than an integral part of the dish. It was perfectly enjoyable, but I would rather have eaten a Pissaladiere (just about 14/20).

Warm mackerel fillet (£28) was served with sweet grapes and aromatic basil. The mackerel itself was excellent, and the acidity of the grapes was an ideal foil to the natural oiliness of the fish (15/20). Crab ravioli with lobster (£29) rested in a broth flavoured with marjoram. The pasta was good, and the crab flavour came through, but the dish needed bolder seasoning (14/20). 

Dover sole (weighing in at a hefty £95) was a classic, simple dish, grilled with butter. Dover sole is a fine fish, and the cooking of this was extremely accurate, the quite large specimen of sole having lovely texture and showing off its excellent flavour really well. This may be a simple dish, but few places execute it this well (15/20). On the side with the main courses, there were some classy frites and very enjoyable cabbage, as well as nice ratatouille.

I had a lemon sorbet with a shortbread biscuit in the side. This was fine, though the sorbet had partly melted by the time it arrived. However, the shortbread was excellent (just about 14/20). I also tasted a more elaborate and rather better dessert, a chocolate soufflé tart (£15) using XOCO dark chocolate. This came with a tuile and a pine bud ice cream. Coffee was a Guatemalan arabica from Ozone Coffee in East London and was good. 

Service was genuinely good throughout, being professional, welcoming and friendly. The cost per person came to £151, including wine. Overall, I thought that the meal at Mazarine was very good, with some mostly good quality ingredients and a quite high level of technical skill on display, such as with the chocolate dessert. The main gripe would be the markup levels on the wine list, but that is all too common a complaint in London these days.