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LET'S GET the showbiz stuff straight out of the way. Teatro is a cool new restaurant co-owned by talented beautiful couple Lee Chapman, ex-footballer, and actress Leslie Ash, the blonde in Men Behaving Badly. As a bald statement of fact, that could go either way. To some, the names of a pair of famous people is enough to woo them straight into the shrine, longing to dangle around the aura of celebrities themselves. To others, it will start major warning bells ringing, and put them irrevocably off, safe in the knowledge that this is not likely to be an enterprise based on the quality of its food. In actual fact, both factions would be much mistaken. Fame groupies will be mightily disappointed by the lack of pizzazz and the starry cost of a meal at Teatro. Those who put quality of food above names in lights, would do well to shelve their worries, reassured by the third luminary in the Teatro line-up, super-chef Gordon Ramsay, who is billed as a consultant shareholder (the chef proper is Stuart Gillies). This is most definitely not an anglicised Planet Hollywood nor a Fashion Cafe. Oh no sirree, this one is aiming high in the starry firmament of sophisticated London restaurants.
Mind you, as a contender for a starry firmament, it's in a downright peculiar setting. The entrance is hidden between the Palace Theatre and the Curzon cinema, in the corner of a totally nondescript office block. I found the business of locating the restaurant inside the block (it is actually right at the back, overlooking Old Compton Street) deeply...