The dining room has always been the heart of the Club — the stage for engagements announced, deals sealed, and Sunday roasts that have outlived governments. This spring, that stage welcomes a new lead. We are delighted to introduce Adrian Beaumont, who joins us as Executive Chef after a career spanning three continents and one very famous kitchen in Lyon.
From Lyon to the Club Kitchen
Chef Beaumont trained under the exacting brigade system of La Maison Verte, the two-Michelin-starred institution where he rose to chef de cuisine before his thirty-second birthday. Stints in Kyoto and Copenhagen followed, each leaving a visible fingerprint on his cooking: an obsession with seasonality from the former, a reverence for restraint from the latter.
"A club is not a restaurant," he told us during his first week, in what may become his mission statement. "A restaurant must impress you once. A club must delight you for thirty years. That is a far more interesting problem."
A Season on the Plate
His first menu, launching the first week of May, is a study in spring: white asparagus with brown butter hollandaise, a risotto of wild garlic and preserved lemon, and roast rack of salt-marsh lamb with the year's first peas. The beloved classics remain — the Dover sole, the Club's Wellington, the trolley of trifles — though members may notice each has been quietly, respectfully sharpened.
The cellar has not been neglected. Working with our sommelier, Chef Beaumont has added a rotating page of growers' Champagnes and a short list of wines by the glass chosen specifically for the new dishes. The pairing menu, offered Thursday through Saturday, is priced for curiosity rather than occasion.
The Chef's Table Returns
Perhaps the most anticipated news: the Chef's Table returns after a four-year hiatus. Eight seats, one evening a week, in the heart of the kitchen — with a menu decided that morning at the market. Reservations open to members on the first of each month and, historically speaking, vanish by lunchtime.
We invite every member to come and taste the new chapter for themselves. As Chef Beaumont says, the best welcome he can offer is on the plate.
Henry Ashworth
Dining Editor
