Thanks for reporting back

> and a 11 NFD capacitor across the LED

'across' ? Diode, cap and LED should be in series, like in the white
LED string link and this

http://home.clear.net.nz/pages/joecolquitt/txlesspsu.gif

> The LED looks a little brighter than I would normally run, but couldn't
> make it dimmer by changing capacitor, or adding  another diode in series

If you didn't mean to say 'across' up there ^^^

 The capacitor restricts only the current, you need to control the voltage
(as in link above). With a very light or no load you might still measure
600VAC. The LED you have might be quite efficient, perhaps add a
parallel resistor (highish value) or series resistor (lowish value - 1k ?)
to
increase the load (thereby reducing the available voltage). Although cap
in series *should* be enough, adding a resistor won't hurt

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