‘Can’t help but exude warmth’: Paper Moon at the OWO, reviewed

Paper Moon is the Italian restaurant inside the Old War Office on Whitehall, now a hotel called Raffles London at the OWO. It has nine restaurants and bars, because it is a Disneyland for the 1 per cent in the fraying centre of the British state, which is enraging and hilarious. I reviewed Saison in November and found it as chilly and finessed as the British state pre-crisis. OWO reminds me of a theme park I visited in Georgia, Russia, two decades ago in winter. It was a fine endeavour but pointless, the happy children had fled. You can’t have a grand hotel inside a post-Imperial bin fire. It makes no sense.

Paper Moon is rather better than Saison: perhaps Italian food can’t help but exude warmth. Or perhaps the stakes are not so high, the further you move from OWO’s bloodless heart, which is a painting of Earl Kitchener’s face in triplicate.