Royal Air Force Club

Reviews

• Elegant traditional with pix of planes

  A wonderful building full of paintings of planes in action, display on Spitfires, painting of Berlin airlift. The elegant dining room is carpeted and quiet. There is a dress code and rulings about recording devices. You can order two-course or three course set meals, or a la carte. The a la carte menu changes fortnightly.Starters included soup of the day and liver pate.We watched beef being carved from a trolley which had a cover.I had set menu, partridge. It was December, the time of year for hearing a Christmas carol about 'a partridge in a pear tree' and I'd never had partridge before. I won't again either. I always find that chicken is the favourite bird worldwide for good reason. The partridge was small tough with no special flavour. What's more it was underdone and bloody. I asked them to cook it more. However, I did like the chestnuts and the heart-shape fried bread. The green beans were suitably crisp.The cod from the a la carte menu was good. Vegetables had to be ordered separately.The dessert trolley included what looks like summer pudding but it's winter pudding because it contains alcohol - Mulled Wine Winter Pudding. Other choices included apple pie, fruit salad; sherry trifle, mince pies, ice creams and sorbets, Yule log. Hot desserts were Xmas pudding with brandy sauce and Rum; and chocolate sponge pudding with clotted cream. The clotted cream was too thick, like butter. It should look and sit solid but still be suckable and slurpable.The British cheeses were most unusual, and included Cornish Yarg wrapped in nettles. The dining room is open lunch 12.30 pm -last orders 2.30 pm and dinner 6.30 pm to last orders at 9.15 pm.We had cafetiere coffee. With mints in contrasting colours of foil - good to look at. We had coffee upstairs in a long lounge. You can pay your bill in the dining room but have coffee served upstairs to drink at leisure sitting in arm chairs or on sofas. The lounge was redecorated in 2008, with the best picture I've ever seen of glamorous young Elizabeth (now Queen).The lounge is named after the man who donated the house to the RAF to be an officers' club.the building is equally near Hyde Park and Green Park stations.Hyde Park station has wonderful murals.The club is open to present or previous members holding a commission with the RAF and their families, but also has reciprocal arrangements with two clubs in Edinburgh, Tanglin Club in Singapore, several in New York and more elsewhere. I went there as the guest of somebody who is a member of the Williams Club in New York. For reciprocal club see the website www rafclub.org.uk Members of reciprocal clubs can also book accommodation. My friend said the RAF club had a great buffet on Saturday lunch time with lots of cheeses.If you are just visiting, pick up a copy of the magazine which members are sent. It told me about VIP members and past events. One of three survivors of The Great War, aged 112, had had a book launch here. And a young woman, the first to receive the Distinguished Flying Cross, lunched here after receiving her award nearby at Buckingham Palace. I also read articles about the development and use of the Harrier and Lancaster planes. The bust of a plane designer is in the corridor leading to the cloakrooms. Another article explained the reason why certain planes were shown in the stained glass window installed in 2008 as the result of a bequest.

  Angella
  Review Date: 12/12/2008 Report review