Divine Dante: The hot NYC transplant is here to stay

Words: Jonathan Whiley

Dirty cornichon martinis, caviar tarts and signature smash burgers. Start spreading the news: Dante Mayfair is here to stay. After a 10-month pop-up, the century-old New York institution recently became a permanent fixture within the hallowed walls of Claridge's.

Haven't you heard, old sport? Renowned husband-and-wife restaurateurs Linden Pride and Nathalie Hudson have amped up the volume and injected a slice of Manhattan cool into the hotel's gilded dining room, from soulful live music (piano and singers every afternoon) to a daily martini hour (3pm until 5pm, £10 a cocktail) and a New York-Italian menu that spans lobster linguine served tableside to Josper wood-fired steak and iceberg wedge salad. It is inescapably and inherently fun: generous old-school hospitality that isn't afraid of loosening its collar and blending high and low.

“A big focus is fun,” Australian co-owner Linden tells me over coffee on Dante Mayfair's second day (they closed for a month to refresh the space, with a new colour palette and statement David Yarrow photography, designed by Nathalie in collaboration with Bryan O'Sullivan Studio).

“We want our amazing team to build a relationship and have that sense of connection, says Linden. “In a hotel defined by luxury, for us the luxury moment is accessibility. One of the things we did to ensure that was we've moved from what was a lunch and dinner service to an all-day continuous service.”

Inspired by Balthazar, the buzzy brasserie in New York, Dante offers breakfast from 8am to 11am followed by all-day dining from midday until 9.30pm (10.30pm Thursday to Saturday). “You can have what you want, when you want,” says Linden. “That's luxury.”

The extended pop-up proved “foundational” in helping them to understand the market, he says. “Seeing what would work on the menu and being able to make tweaks. When it was time to reopen as Dante Mayfair we had this body of experience to apply.

“The one thing I did not expect was the incredible flow between Mayfair and downtown Manhattan. I spent more time here last summer and my wife was back and forth a lot. We would have guests here on a Tuesday and we would see them in the restaurants in New York on a Friday or Saturday and vice-versa. That was amazing.”

With a new dedicated entrance on Davies Street and Mayfair Times as Linden's first interview to mark Dante Mayfair's arrival, he knows the importance of the locals. “Building the relationship with the community is the most important thing,” he says. “It's so nice to have a hotel above us, but the core of the business has to be the street.”

This is far from lip service. Linden and Nathalie have experience in nurturing the communities they are in and, in the case of Caffe Dante in New York's Greenwich Village, winning them over. The original Caffe Dante dates back to 1915 and became known as a hotspot for creatives. At one stage Bob Dylan lived across the road. When Linden and Nathalie took it over in 2015, the reception was initially frosty.

“The local free newspaper headline said: “Two Australians are going to ruin Caffe Dante. We would have people that would come in and say: I've been coming 30 years and you have ruined it? I thought to myself, did you really come here, because it wasn't good. The coffee was burnt and the service sucked. “People didn't want change. Then, after about six months, because we were there meeting people, they started coming in and saying: I've been going for 30 years and isn't it wonderful?”

“What they remember is how they felt in the space. That was a huge learning for us. I realised we were a private enterprise that was a public institution and they had a sense of ownership in terms of what Caffe Dante was. I'm sure it's the same here at Claridge's. There is a real responsibility of having a historic brand because you have a responsibility to those memories and moments associated with your brand.”

At Caffe Dante they added a full food menu and a negroni selection. “During the day it was old New Yorkers and then these kids would come at 3pm for negronis and it would be this total mash-up and a more sophisticated crowd for dinner. That laid the foundations. I don't want to be a cocktail bar because a cocktail bar is where you go for one or two and then think, where are we going for dinner? I want it to be: ‘We're here for dinner, great cocktail, beautiful piece of fish, dessert, another cocktail – let's carry on.'”

Cocktails, in particular martinis, are a key part of Dante Mayfair's offering. There are classics such as the Dante martini (a form of vesper) and a selection of flavoured martinis: lychee vesper, caviar martini and a dirty cornichon martini.

“People in New York have started ordering dirty martinis with a side of cornichons,” Linden says. “I think some of it is to do with Ozempic and people looking for something that is satiating but not filling. In Brooklyn in New York, the cool drink in all the dive bars is a pickleback. It's a shot of Jack Daniels with a shot of pickle juice. It's rock and roll. I took the pickleback and smashed it up with a dirty martini to create the cornichon martini with our own pickle brine.”

Rock and roll is in Linden's family. His grandfather was a DJ in Australia who toured with The Beatles and the Rolling Stones. “He was the first dise jockey to do the Top 40 countdown in the 50s and would pay airline hostesses to buy records for him in Los Angeles and smuggle them back to Australia. In those days if you had the record you had the inside scoop.”

There was a steady flow of musicians in the family house and at 5pm every day it was always martini hour. “It wasn't about the cocktails necessarily, it was just this social moment.” His grandfather Bob died last year, aged 99, but his influence and martini hour live on. “He infused in me a real love affair with the idea of New York,” says Linden. “I know what I'm trying to create when you come to the dining room. The playlist we created here is a lot of blues and foundational rock and roll… Muddy Waters and Taj Mahal and the early Stones.”

When martini hour rolls around at Dante Mayfair, Linden says it's a “constant pinch-me moment”, adding: “It comes back to that sense of the ex-pat on the other side of the world bringing a sensibility to a market that has been so influential to me. A real full circle moment.”

Restaurants have fascinated him from an early age. As a teenager he would accompany his mum, a food critic, as she dined at some of the best restaurants in Australia. “Neil Perry was the king of Australian cuisine and I remember sitting in the dining room of Rockpool and watching the theatre unfold. I was mesmerised.”

Photo credits: Sarel Jansen

 It was Perry who would tell a 17-year-old Linden that he would enjoy the bar much more than the kitchen. A year later, Linden moved to London to learn about cocktail bars, landing a job at Farmacy in Notting Hill. “I remember being totally blown away by the size of the city and the food and beverage scene. It was really that time that [helped] cut my teeth.”

More than two decades on, he's running one of the most famous dining rooms in the capital. Linden first met the Maybourne group, which owns and manages Claridge's, when the hotel launched a cocktail book at Dante in New York. Dante then staged a pop-up at Maybourne's hotel in Beverly Hills, which became a permanent fixture in 2023.

“That inspired us to be able to come here,” says Linden. “It's very humbling. Last year when we started in this space I had this sense that I was almost at my very wealthy in-laws' house and I had to behave. I haven't shaken that feeling entirely, but what we've been able to do is turn the lights down, turn the music up and start serving cocktails and family-style food and guests have really enjoyed it.”

While Linden presides over the food, drinks and music, Nathalie oversees the branding, assets and design. They met at university in Sydney before moving to New York, and with plans to have a family (they now have two daughters), they decided to build a business.

“Over time we've both gravitated towards what we love in the industry,” says Linden. “For her it's design and curation of the brand and for me it's the food and drinks. When I walk into this room, even though it has been 10 to 12 years in the making, I wouldn't have been able to articulate it in the way she has.”

Linden says he is continually inspired by the way that Claridge's continues to remain relevant against the backdrop of such a legacy, and he feels great pride in being part of its next chapter. If they can make it there they can make it anywhere and, what's more, we want to be a part of it.