A current runs through Martin Kuczmarski’s eyes as he drinks from his martini. Vodka, vermouth spritz, orange twist. He is looking around at his restaurant, the Dover, named after the Mayfair street it hides on. “Sophia Loren in the Seventies, that was the inspiration,” he grins. “Well, Sophia Loren goes to Brooklyn, eats a bowl of spaghetti meatballs, and Al Pacino is her boyfriend. That’s what I told the designers.”
So what does Seventies Sophia Loren eating meatballs with Al Pacino look like? Well, as befits the pair, it’s beautiful, mysterious, beguiling. It’s a velvet curtain for an entrance and wood panelling everywhere. It’s low light; chandeliers and candles, shelves with books and records on them. And in the Dover, it looks like success: the restaurant, which opens only for supper — “when I conceived the restaurant, I only conceived it for the night,” says Kuczmarski — is arguably London’s hottest table in town. “I wake up to many messages asking for a table,” he blushes. Have there been celebrities? A-listers, he says, but no names. Discretion matters at the Dover.
