Balthazar

One question often asked of best-TV-series-ever-made Buffy The Vampire Slayer was how the citizens of Sunnydale, a town unusually prone to attack from vampires, demons and the occasional robot, seemingly experienced collective amnesia after each new massacre. Die-hard fans however know that this was neatly explained very early on (Season 1, Episode 2, 'The Harvest') when Giles - Buffy's 'Watcher', or guardian - tells the Scoobies that, "People have a tendency to rationalise what they can and forget what they can't."

So with Giles' advice in mind I am writing this as quickly as possible - the morning after the horror of the night before - so that if, as I truly hope I shall, I forget everything that I can't rationalise about dinner at Balthazar, there will at least remain some record of it to warn others away from this Hellmouth of a restaurant.

Balthazar, a huge brasserie occupying the site of the old Theatre Museum just off the piazza in Covent Garden, is a near-carbon copy of the original Balthazar in New York. Why it was thought that what London really needed in 2013 was its own branch of a restaurant that was very fashionable when it opened in 1997 but nowadays is, by most accounts, strictly one for 'out-of-towners' is beyond me, but so are cooking rice and why people find Ricky Gervais funny - I don't pretend to understand everything.

I certainly don't understand what all the fuss is about the room at Balthazar, or the fabled 'buzz'; you will recognise the decor immediately if you have ever been somewhere like Bofinger in Paris, or Cafe Rouge. I am about the thousandth person now to compare Balthazar to a Cafe Rouge, but the comparison is inevitable when the shared 'I've-been-designed-to-look-like-I've-always-been-here' ersatzness is so stark. As for the 'buzz', fill a cavernous room with people and blast middle-of-the-road jazz over the speakers and of course they'll raise their voices to be heard. You say 'buzz', I say 'racket', tomato, tomato.

Already at our table when I arrived early for our booking, dinner-date Matthew explained that he had fled the adjacent bar because of over-crowding; an unwelcome import from New York is the notion that herding diners cheek-by-jowl into a holding pen before being allowed to have their dinner builds excitement, a theory as flawed as the belief that administering fear-hormone adrenaline to veal calves before slaughter will make the meat taste better.

To the eating. I cannot rationalise how a restaurant jointly operated by Keith McNally - a man who in countless, angst-soaked pre-opening interviews stressed how much of a 'perfectionist' he is - and Caprice Holdings, a company whose restaurants, almost without exception, I love, could allow such mediocre (and in the case of one dish genuinely inedible) food to be served. 

A basket of bread, from Balthazar's own bakery in Waterloo, had been brought thence so slowly or long ago that it was stale and flavourless. My starter of dressed crab was fine, likewise Matthew's chicken liver and foie gras mousse, although presentation was rather forlorn, my crab on a bed of tired lettuce with a tin pot of entirely superfluous Marie Rose sauce, Matthew's mousse a cone plonked on the plate straight from a catering mould. Accompanying red onion confit at least appeared to have been lovingly spooned from the jar.

But the main courses - oh dear, oh God. I ordered whole grilled dorade with Romesco sauce and herb salad, Matthew steak tartare with a side of frites. The fish had been grilled so long that all moisture had been obliterated, and the lemon and herb filling was so over-powering that the dorade tasted - the one mouthful I had before sending it back - as if it had been marinated in Toilet Duck. It was truly horrible, and swiftly changed for a salad Nicoise, which was OK. Matthew's anaemic, undercooked fries, too, had to be replaced and once done properly were far more enjoyable than his meagre portion of dull, dry tartare.

Unsurprisingly, we had no interest in desserts. Nor did we fancy ordering anything from the cheeseboard our waiter presented; would you want to pay £10.50 for brie or roquefort shown to you sweating under their clingfilm wrappers? I thought not. We did at least enjoy the perfectly pleasant mini cookies that came with our coffees. That at first an espresso was served instead of a macchiato came as no surprise; that our bill, for two courses (my replacement for my awful main course was still charged for), coffee, one cocktail, one glass of wine and service came to £92, did.

To give credit where credit is due, our waiter and most of the staff we came into contact with were delightful, but it is humiliating for them and for Balthazar's owners that an army of floor-walking management - from New York, I'm guessing - are trying to train them on the job. If I felt embarrassed that a manager came to the table with our waiter when he was serving our main courses and hissed, "Position 2 for the fish" out of the side of her mouth, how must he have felt? I have heard rumours of a power-struggle between the New York side of the operation and the London team over how things should be done; I didn't expect to see it played out in front of me table-side.

Never before have I left a busy restaurant - and for reasons that cannot have anything to do with the food or atmosphere Balthazar and its veal-truck bar were packed - so inclined to stand at the door and implore people to go somewhere, anywhere else. The Delaunay is just round the corner and doing the grand brasserie thing a thousand times better; hell, Tuttons bang next door is superior by several powers, and that's saying something. 

Would that London were Sunnydale and Buffy could come along and plunge her stake into the heart of this blood-sucking horror of a restaurant; then it would crumble into dust and, not being able to rationalise the sheer dreadfulness of what we had experienced, we could all just forget it had ever happened.

Balthazar, 4-6 Russell Street, London WC2B 5HZ Tel: 020 3301 1155 www.balthazarlondon.com









Posted by +Hugh Wright

Brasserie Chavot

"I knew you would," a friend replied when I tweeted after dinner about how much I'd loved Brasserie Chavot, "it's very you." And it's true; Eric Chavot's new, eponymous brasserie on Conduit Street is very me, encapsulating pretty much everything I love in a restaurant in one very polished package.

Take the stunner of a room, a long, high-ceilinged space formerly (and briefly) The Gallery at The Westbury, the Mayfair hotel that the restaurant is part of but discrete from. Flatteringly-lit by twinkling chandeliers above a glorious mosaic floor, with a small, chic bar at the front and seafood counter looking onto the kitchen at the back, it's just the kind of room I like, and can't imagine anyone not liking, to eat in; elegant but informal, welcoming and warm.

The menu's right up my street too, the kind that at first glance looks a little 'so what?' because nothing leaps out, until it dawns on you that that's because you'd happily order all of it. There are no alarms and no surprises here, just all your brasserie staples - oysters, parfait, steak tartare - with a couple of modish interlopers like soft-shell crab and ceviche to keep things current.

A party of three - myself and two very elegant femmes d'un certain âge of my acquaintance Lyn and Vicki - we started off with a dozen oysters to share. Advertised as rocks, some appeared to be fines de claires, which I minded a little. If it seems ungrateful of me not to appreciate receiving ostensibly superior oysters to those ordered, let me say in mitigation that I have always preferred the full-on snog-with-tongues of rocks to the refined peck-on-the-cheek of fines de claires, while accepting that there is a time and a place for both. That aside, they were completely delicious and very attractively served, with accompaniments of shallot vinegar in a china oyster shell and crepinette, little patties of peppery veal sausage for crumbling on top. Great value too, at under £2 a piece.

I was a little ambivalent about my starter proper of steak tartare; something of a Tartar when it comes to tartare I was curious to see what 'mustard dressing' might bring to it. The answer was a piquancy - of course - and creaminess that while perfectly pleasant didn't particularly improve on a classic. There was exceptional flavour to the beef mind you (rump from Aubrey Allen, the chef told me later) and it was generous in quantum for £9.50 - Vicki's main course serving at £15 even moreso - although neither size came with anything, no toast, or fries, or salad, which I thought odd.

Lyn's ceviche was unimpeachable, translucent slices of scallops in a beautifully balanced marinade of lime juice and chilli, and we all enjoyed the basket of sourdough bread with its moreish bitter, dark crust. Her main of tiger prawns with chickpeas and chorizo was a hit too, the large prawns split in half and given a smoky char from the Josper grill.

Although I'll admit to having suffered slightly from plate envy, it was quickly dispelled by my own main course of choucroute garnie. Served in a cast-iron casserole dish it was more garnie than choucroute, and none the worse for that, a mini-mountain of pork - belly, back bacon, sausage, shoulder, oh my - concealing a tangle of glossy sauerkraut with a couple of potatoes and carrots thrown in for good measure. In his wonderfully obsessive 1989 essay 'True Choucroute', reproduced in The Man Who Ate Everything, Jeffrey Steingarten calls choucroute garnie 'a dizzying, almost inconceivable gastronomic summit'; I think he'd approve of this rendition.

Only I had room for dessert, a not unusual state of affairs, and my Mont Blanc was a soothingly light end to a rich, comforting meal. Like the steak tartare, this was Eric Chavot's take on a classic rather than a textbook version of it; I liked the replacement of pureed chestnuts with chestnut parfait and the addition of black-cherry sauce, but purists might not. You'd have to be dead inside not to love the presentation though, in a beautiful heavy-based glass bowl.

With a carafe of Rioja for the ladies, a Virgin Mary for me and service, our bill would have come to about £50 a head, had it not transpired when we asked for it that it had completely unexpectedly 'been taken care of'. I couldn't quite work out exactly why, or by whom, but whoever it was I'm very grateful to them. We'd had a really delightful time and that very pleasant surprise was just the icing on the cake.

Brasserie Chavot is not perfect; there is definitely room for tweaking. Service for example was friendly and unhurried, but a used aperitif glass stood empty on the table until late in the meal, and one main course came a little after the others (which was apologised for, but serving everyone at the same time is fairly basic stuff). These might seem petty quibbles, but like a spot of red wine on a brilliant white tablecloth, little things stand out when everything else is so accomplished.

But as my friend had known I would, I liked Brasserie Chavot; I liked it a hell of a lot. I don't see how anyone could fail to. It's a lovely room to eat in, the food's fantastic, it's very good value for money and it helps that the chef is a real character. Go, be seduced, have fun, then tweet about how much you liked it so I can say, "I knew you would."

Brasserie Chavot, 41 Conduit Street, London W1S 2YF Tel: 020 7078 9577 www.brasseriechavot.com







Posted by +Hugh Wright

Brasserie Zédel

Anyone who, like me, was living in London in the 1990s will remember Atlantic Bar & Grill. Owned by the then-coolest cat in town, Oliver Peyton - the Russell Norman of his day, now better known for his role as a judge on Great British Menu - Atlantic, with its snappy bouncers and seemingly untraversable velvet rope, was for a time at least the place to see and be seen, if only you could get in.

It's rather poetic then that in its new incarnation as Brasserie Zédel, what was once London's most exclusive venue is now among its most democratic, offering all-day dining at extremely accessible prices to a staggering 240 covers at a time. Reservations are taken (fancy!) but a substantial proportion of tables are kept for walk-ins meaning that, unlike Atlantic, any and everyone is able to get in.

And get in they must if Rex Restaurant Associates, the Chris Corbin and Jeremy King-helmed investment vehicle behind Zédel  is to make back the fortune that must have been spent on the decor, one of London's most jaw-dropping rooms by a country mile. Shayne Brady, the impishly-handsome head designer at David Collins Studio has turned what was a dark and imposing subterranean space into a light, even dazzling room with acres of pink-hued marble, brass railings and real gold leaf on the capitals atop the room's mighty columns.

As for the pricing, much has been made of how cheap many dishes on Brasserie Zédel's all-French menu are - not least the soupe du jour at a no-it-can't-be £2.25 - but it's not necessarily a cheap restaurant; on my most recent visit, one of several since it opened, four of us clocked up a bill of about £40 a head once a couple of decent bottles of wine had been added to the mix. Rather, it is one offering value for money almost unheard of not just in London's West End but just about anywhere.

Starters start with that soup and peak at £7.75; particularly brilliant are the crème Dubarry - a thick cream of cauliflower soup - and the soupe de poissons at £4.75, almost as good as The Ivy's at two-thirds of the price. Salads, too, impress, particularly endive and roquefort which happily marries the bitterness of chicory to the saltiness of blue cheese.

Of the main courses, even the simplest steak haché - £7.50 on its own or available as part of the £8.75 for two courses or £11.25 for three prix-fixe - is noteworthy, using good beef and enlivened by a perky sauce au poivre. The vast choucroute Alsacienne, £11.75 and a meal in itself, is as delicious a mountain of pickled cabbage and pork as you'll ever find.  

Desserts continue the theme of being far better than one would expect for the price. I simply can't fault the ile flottante - £2.75! - and even the café gourmand with the prix-fixe is a generous serve, three mini pastries with a cafetiere of decent filter coffee. There's also all manner of ice-cream coupes, sorbets, tarts and cakes, all for under a fiver.

In a restaurant of this size, serving this many people, choreographing service is bound to be a challenge and to date my only real gripes with Brasserie Zédel have been around this. Firstly, wherever the kitchen is in this behemoth of a building, it is clearly too far from the dining room to ensure that food arrives piping hot; nothing I have eaten has been much hotter than tepid although it's tasted none the worse for that. 

Also, in the time it takes for plates to arrive at the tables, sauces can congeal; a quick whisk with a fork at the service station before presentation would help no end. Worst of all, on my most recent visit our main courses arrived before we had even finished our starters and rather than being taken away, they were served while one of our party raced under pressure to finish her soup, which is a serious no-no in my book. So it's not perfect, but it's still early days for Brasserie Zédel and with luck and a little more time these glitches should iron out. 

Everything else - the reasonably-priced wine list, the perfect classic cocktails being served in the beautiful Art Deco Bar Americain, the camp coral pink napkins one of which, mea culpa, found its way into my handbag - make this easily one of the most exciting new openings in London this year.

As I write, reservations have just opened for Corbin & King's next project, Cafe Colbert on Sloane Square; with its SW1 location and aristocratic landlord it is unlikely that it will be as democratic as Brasserie Zédel.  No matter; for here is a restaurant that in both pricing and geography is truly accessible to anyone - and not a velvet rope in sight.

Brasserie Zédel, 20 Sherwood Street, London W1F 7ED Tel: 020 7734 4888 http://www.brasseriezedel.com

 

 

 

Posted by +Hugh Wright

Tuttons, Covent Garden

Until fairly recently, Covent Garden was something of a culinary wasteland, its restaurant scene not having kept up with an ever-improving retail landscape. Bar one or two decent places - Joe Allen, Clos Maggiore - options for eating out in WC2 were mostly  limited to terrible tourist traps and what might charitably be called 'better chains'.

Then, within a couple of years, a slew of serious restaurants arrived - among them Opera Tavern, Mishkin's and Dishoom, to name just three - and suddenly Covent Garden became as much a destination for food as for fashion. With them came an influx of more discerning - or at least, more demanding - diners, faced with which the area's older businesses have had to adapt or die.

Tuttons, the landmark 'brasserie round the corner', has chosen the former, its owners throwing a presumably huge cheque at a new interior and revamped menu. The room's undeniably very nice to look at  - the work of Russell Stage Studio, responsible for such recent beauties as Zetter Townhouse and The Balcon - and clearly cost a bomb, all heavy dark wood, chunky mirrors, shiny red banquettes and faux-alligator tabletops. Tuttons' menu reads impressively too, offering modern brasserie staples with a heavy emphasis on British produce - four counties are name-checked in the starters section alone. 

It's a shame then that at least based on my recent visit with Anders, the menu is writing cheques that the food can't cash. A starter of 'Honey-rolled beef carpaccio with veal heart dumplings' had leapt at me off the page and wasn't at all bad, the carpaccio silky, the little offal dumplings rich and peppery, but if the 'honey-rolling' was meant to add a sweet counterpoint then it wasn't there. 

Anders' Dorset crab, saltwater prawns and avocado was of unimpeachable freshness and flavour but suffered from poor presentation, the crustacea lying on forlorn iceberg lettuce and salad leaves that spoke of recent extraction from a bag.

Lacklustre leaves also served to spoil the look of my main course of Buckinghamshire veal wrapped in Parma ham (yes, saltimbocca); no-one wants to see a vast clump of slightly-past-its-prime watercress on their plate. Our waiter actually said, "I'm not going to ask how the veal is because it's amazing, right?" Well, wrong, I had to correct him to his evident disappointment; after a jaw-workout-tough first mouthful it improved in both texture and flavour but 'amazing' it was not. I couldn't detect any anchovy in the lemon and anchovy butter, but a fried duck egg on top and some wonderful crispy sage were nice touches. 

Poor Anders' main course, a cauliflower, leek and Montgomery cheddar bake, was no more than fine; the kind of thing one could easily rustle up at home and disappointing for the only vegetarian main course available.

Plates sat for an age uncleared before we moved on to desserts and any hopes of a climactic high-note were to be in vain. Kentish raspberry cheesecake with biscuit crumb  - that 'biscuit crumb' should have rung alarm bells - was an irritating deconstructed affair, a loose frothy quenelle of 'cheesecake' dropped amidst half a crumbled digestive biscuit, the whole drizzled in a cheap-tasting raspberry sauce. Anders's summer pudding trifle used some good fresh fruit but was otherwise unexciting.

My overall impression - gently rebutted by the duty manager whom I put it to - was that here was a menu that had been conceived with good intentions, by a clearly very passionate chef, but which was being delivered without his supervision by a kitchen that was cutting some corners and lacking finesse. Nothing we ate was actually bad, and some dishes - the crab, the veal after the first few mouthfuls - at least tasted very good. But with prices on a par with Dean Street Townhouse, which has clearly been looked to for inspiration both for decor and menu, the whole operation will have to work a lot harder if Tuttons is to establish itself as serious competition for the area's upstart newcomers.

Tuttons, 11/12 Russell Street, London WC2B 5HZ Tel: 0844 371 2550 http://www.tuttons.com 

I was invited to review Tuttons. 




Posted by +Hugh Wright

The Delaunay

From the reverence afforded in some quarters to restaurateurs Chris Corbin and Jeremy King, you'd think that they'd done far more for London's dining scene than open one successful restaurant - The Wolseley - in the past ten years. But up until late 2011, when The Delaunay opened on Aldwych, that was indeed the sum of their achievements, St Alban - an ill-fated attempt to replicate The Ivy, which they once owned - having lasted barely three years.

By the end of 2012 however, you'll barely be able to turn around in central London without finding yourself near a Corbin & King-owned restaurant, as in addition to The Wolseley and The Delaunay plans are already well underway for the openings of Brasserie Zedel off Piccadilly and Cafe Colbert on the former Oriel site on Sloane Square. With a hotel due to open in 2014, a chain, albeit a rather grand one, is being forged.

Unsurprisingly, for their first post-St Alban outing Corbin and King have chosen to stick to the same schtick as The Wolseley; The Delaunay, too, is 'an all-day cafe-restaurant in the grand European style'.  This means a large room given an opulent makeover by interiors legend David Collins to look like it's always been there - acres of marble and antiqued, rather than antique, mirrors abound - while the lengthy menu of brasserie staples is almost indistinguishable, in content and typography, from The Wolseley's.

If the overall effect is somewhat ersatz, it doesn't prevent The Delaunay from being an absolutely lovely place to be. I'd booked in for dinner with two friends and fellow Mitford sisters obsessives for the latest of our occasional 'fan club' outings, whereby we convene somewhere glamorous of which we think Nancy Mitford would have approved and read selected favourite passages from her and her sisters' writings to each other (sorry, but if you wanted someone who does butch things in his spare time you are reading completely the wrong blog). The Delaunay was a perfect choice; we couldn't have had a nicer time.

Having booked only a day before we were denied a table in the main dining room but were perfectly happy with our table in the adjacent Salon. While some diners seated here might consider it to be second-class accommodation compared to first next door, we certainly didn't feel at all hard done by and service couldn't have been better - friendly but nicely formal, presided over by general manager Sebastian Fogg, a man so dapper and cosmopolitan in his three-piece suit that I refuse to believe he isn't descended from Phileas.

Food was uniformly good; not at all exciting, but then grand European café food isn't meant to be. My starter of steak tartare was silky and well-spiced, although I missed being asked how spicy I like it or being offered condiments to tweak it to my taste, as usually happens elsewhere. The Client's liverwurst with pickled walnuts and toasted rye bread was an elegant Teutonic take on paté on toast.

For main courses, Karin and I ordered from the 'Wieners' section of the menu that offers a brace of five slightly different sausages, or your choice of any two, garnished with sauerkraut and potato salad for only about a tenner. I no longer remember which we had - I was too busy declaiming Deborah Devonshire to take notes - but I know that we very much enjoyed everything and remarked on what good value it was. The Client was similarly enthusiastic about his fish 'n' chips (naturally rather more grandly styled as 'goujons of plaice' and served with a dainty muslin-wrapped lemon half, but undeniably fish 'n' chips).

As is often the case, the best course was dessert. Pudding is a big deal at The Delaunay, with an entire third of the menu being dedicated to Desserts - ice cream, fruit salad, mousses - Patisserie from an alluring display and Coupes, wonderful ice cream sundaes. The Client chose the refreshing Seville, consisting of blood orange sorbet with orange compote, while I went for the boozy Highland - whisky and coffee ice creams, laced with ginger and topped with whipped cream. Both were delicious, retro and fun - words which pretty much sum up The Delaunay itself.

Pricing is reasonable; a couple of bottles of Gruner-Veltliner, after-dinner drinks and service pushed the bill up to about £40 each though you could easily get away with a main course and a glass of wine for around half that. The atmosphere is lively, The Delaunay's location on the edge of Theatreland ensuring  a steady flow of customers throughout the evening, with speculative walk-ins arriving even as we were leaving - clearly not put off by the very stern doorman whose unwelcoming stiffness was the only real duff note of the evening.

The Delaunay is very much a branch of The Wolseley - its name, like its sibling's, taken from a vintage car, as is [Brasserie] Zedel's - but if its deep-pocketed investors' backing is conditional on a manifesto of 'If it ain't broke don't fix it' no-one can blame them for that. Whether London's appetite for the format will be enough to sustain another (and another) in a similar mould remains to be seen but for now, The Delaunay looks guaranteed to give Messrs Corbin and King a long-awaited second success.

The Delaunay, 55 Aldwych, London WC2B 4BB Tel: 020 7499 8558 http://www.thedelaunay.com



 



Posted by +Hugh Wright

La Brasserie, South Kensington

As we strolled along Brompton Road on our way to dinner, Anders said, "There's a restaurant down here that's always busy whenever I walk past. We should go there some time." By coincidence - I won't say 'as luck would have it' for reasons which will become apparent - said restaurant in fact turned out to be our destination, La Brasserie, so Anders got his wish rather sooner than expected.

La Brasserie has been in business on the same site in Brompton Cross since 1972 and apart from the addition of a cocktail bar in 2010 - apparently the reason why they have started to invite bloggers and press in to write about the place - it doesn't appear to have changed much in that time. The decor is 'clichéd French brasserie-by-numbers', with red banquettes, checker-board tiles and framed photos of the Eiffel Tower all present and correct. It looks, as Anders observantly put it, like a tourist trap on the Champs Elysées, somewhere designed to reassure unconfident diners that here is somewhere so resolutely and indisputably French that you could not have a Frencher meal anywhere, jamais.

The menu is almost comedically francais too. Ask any mildy xenophobic granddad what he thinks French people eat and he'll rattle off a list including frogs' legs, snails, onion soup, boeuf bourguignon and steak-frites and all of these are indeed available at La Brasserie. In fact apart from the decor and the menu, the only thing that does appear to have changed since the 1970s is the prices, of which some, even in SW3 on what must be an incredibly expensive site, left us rather a bout de souffle.

I started with cuisses de grenouilles persillade, frog's legs cooked in white wine, garlic and parsley, while Anders decided to try the onion soup. Both arrived unnervingly quickly - within just a few minutes of ordering  - and the intense heat radiating from Anders' soup bowl did nothing to dispel the suspicion that it had recently emerged from the microwave. When eventually cool enough to try, it was thin and salty, with no real onion punch and none of the depth and sweetness good onion soup obtains from slow, patient cooking. Anders gave up on it after only a few spoonfuls. The frog's legs smelled and tasted overwhelmingly of garlic; they were nice enough, and tender, but the meat had no discernible flavour of its own.

For our main courses we unthinkingly ordered two variations of essentially much the same dish, in Anders' case the hamburger Holstein -  'chopped steak topped with fried egg, anchovies & capers, frites' - and for me steak tartare, which when done really well (as in proficiently, not 'well', or even 'medium' for that matter, that would be silly) is one of my very favourite dishes.

Alas this was not one of those occasions. What came to the table was so unattractive, so sad and sorry-looking on the plate, that I broke my own rule and took a picture of it, just in case words failed me and I was unable accurately to convey how appalled I was at the green gunge-strewn patty of machine-chopped beef which appeared before me, a black olive plonked on top, two tiny cornichons and two wedges of hard, fridge-cold tomato added as garnish before the whole ugly affair was scattered as an after-thought with parsley.

What even  was that green gloop? The recipe includes gherkins and capers and I gamely - and charitably - trusted that somehow in the food processor these had pureed and coagulated in the mix. I must say it didn't taste anything like as bad as it looked - it was well-seasoned and used good-quality beef - but I still couldn't forgive what had been done to it. Anders' burger - essentially the same thing, cooked - was fine. Not great, but fine. The accompanying frites were bog-standard catering chips, and none the worse for that, but not what you'd expect with dishes costing £17 (the burger) or £20 (the tartare).

In for a centime in for a franc, we gamely pushed through to desserts and oh, how I wish we hadn't. Tarte tatin, a forlorn, dark, compacted looking thing, consisted of sharp, mushy fruit (putatively apple) on a soggy base, served with a scoop of ice-cream - the only properly edible thing on the plate. It was actively unpleasant, also microwaved, and more than two thirds of it was left untouched. Anders' ginger crème brulée was OK, a good creamy filling under a nicely crunchy topping.

No-one noticed or seemed at all concerned that many of our dishes returned to the kitchen less than half-eaten, but then service throughout the evening was - with the exception of the friendly if oddly nervy cocktail barman -  at worst brusque, at best nonchalant, so it came as no surprise that no questions were asked as to our (dis)satisfaction. And for this, a discretionary 13.5% service - yes thirteen-and-a-half percent - is added to your bill.

Whatever I might say about La Brasserie, it will have no effect on its ongoing popularity. A restaurant that has been in business for nigh-on forty years and is, as Anders has witnessed, always busy, does not need good reviews to continue to thrive nor will it suffer from bad ones. It is, effectively, criticism proof. A waitress could slap Fay Maschler with a mouldering ham and there'd still be a 45 minute wait for a table come Friday night while tables stand empty at the superior, and slightly cheaper, Aubaine two doors down.

La Brasserie isn't meant to be a destination for great (or even good) food. It exists for unimaginative wealthy locals and shoppers (and celebrities - Felicity Kendal was there on the night we visited, the most exciting thing about the whole experience) who value familiarity and stability over quality and value for money. "Darling," Anders said consolingly as I wailed uncomprehendingly into the night, "these people are not price-point conscious!"

No, no; I should say they are not.

La Brasserie, 272 Brompton Road, London SW3 2AW Tel: 020 7581 3089 http://www.labrasserielondon.com



I was invited to eat at La Brasserie free of charge by their PR company

Les Deux Salons

One of the most common assumptions about restaurant bloggers is that we'd all really like to be professional restaurant critics, and some, I don't doubt, would. I wouldn't, because I'd be crap at it; I don't have a critic's detachment, and it goes against my nature to actively look for the bad as well as the good. In blogging as in life, it is simply my nature that I always look for the positive. Be it people, situations, art, books or, in the present context, restaurants, I live by the ever-hopeful premise that in everything and everyone there is something inherently good; even Hitler loved his dog.

You'll appreciate then how hard it is for me that I really can't think of a single good word to say about Les Deux Salons, a sprawling all-day brasserie located just off the Strand. On paper it should be so good; owners Will Smith and Anthony Demetre are the chaps behind Michelin-starred Arbutus in Soho and Wild Honey in Mayfair, so it's certainly got pedigree. But based on my recent experience, for afternoon tea with fabulous fashion blogger Michael Ford, Les Deux Salons may prove to be the mutt of the litter.

Anyone who's been to Dean Street Townhouse - as I have just a couple of (dozen) times - will recognise the sort of dark wood, dark colours, brass fittings look that Les Deux Salons has gone for, both having been designed by the increasingly ubiquitous Martin Brudnizki. However, whereas from day one the Townhouse looked worn-in and welcoming, the room here - or the room we were in; there are of course deux - just looks like an off-the-shelf, generic brasserie, the paint too glossy, the 'aged' mirrors obviously brand new. It doesn't feel like any love's gone into the interior, nor does there seem to be much attention paid to what goes on within it; I noticed several wobbling tables, one of our teacups was stained and the dirty cloths on adjacent tables were allowed to remain in situ and in sight for far too long.

By far the worst offence however was the meal itself. It might seem unfair to judge a restaurant on something as incidental as afternoon tea rather than its a la carte offering, but my feeling is that if a restaurant is going to operate all day, then it should maintain its standards all day. Michael and I chose the Champagne Afternoon Tea at £25, consisting (as one would expect) of tea, finger sandwiches, scones with clotted cream and jam, a choice of cakes and a glass of Champagne. I say Champagne; what we were brought was certainly a sparkling wine, and quite possibly a demi-sec Champagne, but tasted suspiciously like Prosecco. Without it we would have paid £7.50 less, but even then I don't think we would have felt that we'd had value for money.

The finger sandwiches, of which there were half a dozen each, were the sorriest, dullest assortment I've ever seen. Michael's vegetarian selection was entirely cheese - the same cheese at that - while mine was barely more varied; so-so salmon, processed ham, all in very ordinary, very dry sliced bread. Neither of us finished our measly six fingers despite Michael's  having not eaten that day and my famously prodigious appetite. There was no sign of say, egg and cress, or cucumber, the kind of light, tasty fillings one expects, and usually gets, at afternoon tea.

Our scones were, in fairness, pretty good - that really is about the most enthusiasm I can muster  - but the cakes were dreadful. Chocolate cake, listed on the menu as 'moist', was so dense that the first - and last - forkful stuck in my throat. Quatre quarts, described uninspiringly by our waiter as 'like a dry cake', was like a dry cake. We didn't have the appetite or interest to try the carrot cake; for all I know it could have been the most amazing feat of bakery since Monsieur Carême invented the soufflé, but I doubt it. Our teas, from an unexciting but OK selection, were fine.

Service was...well service was alright, but not great. Our waiter - or at least, the waiter who we saw the most of  - was efficient enough but lacked warmth, and seemed to almost resent any questions or interaction over and above the bare minimum (Michael's request for vegetarian sandwiches for example was greeted with a look of such incredulity that a third-party observer might have thought we'd asked him to find us transport to the sun). When another waiter came to clear our table and I politely explained why more than half of our food remained untouched  - basically because it was dry, heavy stodge - he did thank me and say that he would 'tell the kitchen' but this didn't translate into any reduction on the bill which, with 12.5% service, came in at a hefty £28 each for mediocre food, average tea and ordinary possibly-not-even Champagne. The Woleseley it most certainly ain't.

All that aside, I did greatly enjoy the company; fortunately Michael was sufficiently laid back as to be able to laugh off the dreadfulness of it all and we enjoyed our couple of hours gossiping. If you're at all interested in fashion, or simply enjoy good writing and photography, then you could do a lot worse than subscribe to Michael's fabulous blog, Anastasia & Duck. But that, I'm afraid, is the only positive thing I can find to say about my experience of Les Deux Salons.

Les Deux Salons, 40-42 William IV Street, London WC2N 4DD Tel: 020 7420 2050 http://www.lesdeuxsalons.co.uk/

Cafe Luc, Marylebone

This restaurant is now closed.

If I gave my blog posts headlines rather than simple titles, you can be sure that they would be dreadful punning ones. Bar Boulud? 'Not worth the hulla-Boulud'; Drapers Arms? 'Cut from some very fine cloth', that sort of thing. I say this only because while struggling to think where to begin with appraising an eminently forgettable dinner at Marylebone newbie Cafe Luc, I came up with several groan-out-loud possibilities: 'A Luclustre Performance'; 'Luc warm at best';  'Luc who's coming for dinner' - you get the picture. And speaking of pictures, you know it's come to something when I break my cardinal rule of not photographing food to snap my smiley-faced gazpacho, just to be sure of having something of interest to share.

This isn't to say I was left feeling entirely luctiferous by Cafe Luc, which occupies a huge site at the northern end of fashionable Marylebone High Street. Much of the experience was very agreeable, not least the company of the devilishly-handsome up-and-coming fashion television producer James Tomlinson who, you heard it here first, will very soon be telling us all what not to wear and how to look good clothed. The cocktails we kicked off the evening with - a vodka Martini and a Sea Breeze - were excellent, although there's no list so you just have to know what you want and hope that they know how to make it. And it's a not unattractive if rather corporate-feeling room, with lucent clusters of lamps spaced along biscuity-beige walls and plenty of mirrors for admiring one's fellow diners (and oneself) in. It's just those rather important elements of food and service that let the place down.

On its website, Cafe Luc boasts that "the classic brasserie menu references French and Mediterranean dishes, drawing on seasonal and local produce." So far so appetising, except that the menu doesn't actually make any references to seasonality or provenance, other than for a dish of Cornish mackerel on the prix-fixe which combines both (if by 'local' they mean 'regional' which I rather fancy to be the case). Sure, the smiley gazpacho was made with tomatoes, which are very much in season at the time of writing, but as a showcase of August's abundant lycopene-rich lovelies it wasn't exactly up there with, say, the beautiful, rainbow-hued salad of Heritage toms I enjoyed on my most recent visit to Dean Street Townhouse.

James and I ordered from the prix-fixe, good value at £15.50 and even better value at the £1 it was costing me thanks to an opening online offer. Good value, yes, but also depressingly pedestrian. As well as the gazpacho, which was garlicky, oily and not at all bad, starter choices were smoked salmon (described by both the menu and James as 'fine') served eccentrically on a toasted crumpet, and a duck terrine. Mains included pea risotto, the aforementioned Cornish mackerel and steak frites. We both ordered the latter; it was all right. Our desserts, lemon tart with raspberries and Chantilly and Nutella crème brulée, were good although the latter tasted more of chocolate than of the promised hazelnut and thus disappointed. I'm honestly not sure if we'd have fared any better ordering a la carte; while it's perfectly possible to szhuszh up a 'classic brasserie menu' (step forward Automat) I don't think that's happening in the kitchen at Cafe Luc based on what we were served.

Ah yes - the service. Like the food, it wasn't actively bad, and I would probably have been more sympathetic had what we were eating been really stellar, but the so what-ness of the meal only served to accentuate the 'So what?' attitude of the people serving it. Excepting the warm welcome at the reception desk, staff were for the most part aloof, absent and seemingly uninterested in making our experience a memorable one. Worst of all, they committed the to-me impardonable table-side sin of serving James's main course to his empty place while he was away from the table. Given that other tables seemed to be receiving rather more attention, I can only conclude that because one of us was only paying a pound, we were deemed worthy of only 12.5 pence worth of service.

Somewhat depressingly, I expect that despite the blandness of all it has to offer Cafe Luc will thrive; while over-priced for what it is, perversely it's pretty cheap for Marylebone and in its very ordinariness could service a need for 'plain' food in an enclave which boasts plenty for the gourmand - The Providores, L'Autre Pied and Orrery are all nearby - but little for the casual diner. Whatever your culinary preference, I can only suggest that you Luc elsewhere.

Cafe Luc, 50 Marylebone High Street, London W1U 5HN Tel: 020 7258 9878 http://www.cafeluc.com

Julie's

Today, in a flagrant contravention of popular advice, I met one of my idols. Though not, to most, a household name, Virginia Bates - owner of a legendary, eponymous vintage clothing boutique on Portland Road, high priestess of British fashion, fairy godmother to generations of designers (John Galliano is a bosom pal), actress and charity fundraiser - is someone who has always held a certain magic for me; her semi-regular blog postings on vogue.com are a delicious insight into the magical world she inhabits of seemingly endless parties, fundraisers, art happenings and opening nights.

Virginia has been a fixture of the fashionable London scene throughout the last five decades, through the Swinging Sixties and Cool Britannia via the Greed Is Good Eighties to the Credit Crunch Noughties. Virginia is a true one-of-a-kind; inimitable, improbable, unique, the very embodiment of the kind of person that were she not to exist - heaven forfend - we would have to invent her. As will no doubt be clear, I absolutely adore Virginia Bates, and today - thanks to it having transpired that we have a wonderful mutual friend, who set it up - Virginia Bates and I had brunch.

There could only be one venue for this auspicious occasion. Directly opposite Virginia's shop on Portland Road stands Julie's, the famous neighbourhood restaurant beloved of well-heeled locals and visiting A-Listers alike and which has been feeding both all day and night for 40 years. Yes, you read right - four-zero, making it arguably as much of a London institution as Virginia herself; something of a restaurant idol if you like.

It's an incredible place, sprawling out over several floors and multiple rooms, each entirely different from the others, one Moorish in feel, another Balearic, one casual and cafe-ish, another formal and haute; you could breakfast, brunch, lunch, dine and sup here every day for a week and never feel that you were in the same place twice. It wasn't always thus; the original lounge-y basement space which Virginia vividly described for me evoked images of the Kit-Kat Club, presided over as it was by 'a very gay former ballet dancer' and having the feel 'of having accidentally stumbled into someone's living room'. There's still a very homely feel about Julie's today, at least in the part in which we were seated, which I'm sure must contribute in no small part to its local appeal.

One criticism that's been leveled at Julie's by some reviewers is that the pricing of the food bears little relation to the quality and indeed quantity of it, and I must admit that when I looked over the menu online during my preliminary research (yes, I do do my homework believe it or not) the prices struck me as being rather steep. For two very good reasons however I'm not able to contribute to this particular discussion: for one, we ordered from the brunch menu all of which appeared to be fairly priced (for W11 at least) and for another, the bill - whatever it came to I couldn't tell you - was unexpectedly and very generously taken care of by Virginia's (and now, I like to think, my) pal Rod. Pure class.

Everything that came to the table was excellent; my smoked salmon and scrambled eggs was almost as good as I make it at home (in my not-so-humble opinion), the full English being enjoyed by Rod and our gorgeous friend Chris appeared to be all present and correct and very attractively plated, and Virginia thoroughly liked her eggs and bacon. Toast was hot and crispy, butter soft and plentiful, the preserves superb (Bonne Maman no less) and the coffee strong, aromatic and very freshly roasted. Service was quick, courteous and unobtrusive - whether this was because of Virginia's status as local royalty or the norm I'd not know, but I'd err towards the latter.

Most delicious of all however was the conversation; there was so much that I wanted to talk about with Virginia that we were only ever going to make the merest scratch on the surface, but I still enjoyed a good couple of hours of the most wonderful anecdotes, reminiscences and gossip. Madame Bates (as her invitation to the Dior Haute Couture show is invariably engraved) however was not the only fascinating figure at the table; Rod regaled us with accounts of a very high-profile wedding he had attended recently as well as the opening night at Galvin La Chapelle, while Chris had heart-warming tales of his return to good health after a prolonged period otherwise and of a fledgling new romance far sweeter than anything on the pudding menu.

All was rounded off with a trip across the road to the shop, where Virginia relived for us the marvellous story of when she met one of her idols, a certain Miss Barbra Streisand. That meeting, too, ended happily; far from disappointing her, Barbra was everything Virginia had ever wanted her to be and more. I left feeling exactly the same about Virginia.

Dear Reader, I'm sorry; this is a pitiful excuse for a restaurant review. I've told you barely anything about Julie's and far more than you could ever possibly be interested in hearing about what was a very special moment for me but in which you I expect could not fail to be interested less. Of whether Julie's is good or bad, over- or fairly-priced, worth a visit or not, I am probably not qualified to judge. All I can say is this: my experience of Julie's was entirely and only positive, and that it has stayed in business - not to mention in the same hands - for four decades must surely be an indicator that its fans far, far outweigh its vocal online detractors.

Try it for yourself and let me know what you think, and if you happen to pop into the heavenly vintage clothes emporium across the way, tell its gorgeous, vital, effervescent owner that her #1 Fan sends his love.

Julie's Restaurant & Bar, 135 Portland Road, London W11 4LW Tel: 020 7229 8331 http://www.juliesrestaurant.com/

Palm Court Brasserie

Ordinarily, Palm Court Brasserie in Covent Garden isn't the sort of place I'd go. On a touristy street in a touristy part of town, overlooking the busker-infested hell of the Piazza, it's aimed firmly at the visitor who, seeking brasserie staples in nice surroundings at fair-ish prices, hasn't had the good fortune to stumble on a branch of Brown's (more on which topic later). That said, I'll give anywhere a whirl when there's free food on offer and having accrued enough Toptable Rewards points for a free dinner for two, with Palm Court being one of the venues where the offer could be redeemed, Andrew and I decided to give it a shot. My expectations weren't especially high and it's not being deliberately uncharitable to say that my expectations were met.

That's not to say that there's anything at all wrong with Palm Court. Notwithstanding that I was less than impressed when my pointing out that our table was wobblier than a Crossroads set was met with the response 'Yes they're all like that', service was fine, although Andrew had to reassure me that it shouldn't worry me so much that the adjacent table had to wait what seemed like aeons for their main courses, whereas ours appeared mere seconds after our starters had been cleared away. The decor's none too bad either, in a harmless Paris-by-numbers kind of way, although lighting fell on the squinting side of subdued.

As for the food, it was fair-to-middling for the most part; not bad for a freebie but perhaps not the best showcase for what the kitchen can do (which I would have thought to be the reasoning for offering these reward meals - to impress people enough to want to come back, or perhaps I'm oversimplifying things?) Andrew's starter, a Greek-ish salad of feta, tomato and spinach, was fresh and colourful on the plate; mine, a very ordinary, bought-in chicken liver parfait with toasted brioche (chewy) and onion marmalade - about a teaspoon thereof - was alright but certainly didn't justify a £2 supplement. We got luckier with our mains, both opting for braised gammon ham with mash and grain mustard sauce, which was very pleasant if a little more pub-grub than brasserie-fare. Puddings, from the main menu, were good if not great; Andrew's sticky toffee pudding elicited a 'very nice', and my cheese plate was good on choice and quality but let down by no warning being given that the promised quince paste accompaniment - one of my favourite things - had run out.

When the bill came, our one extra course each, bottle of house red, side dish of green beans and 12.5% service had added £20 a head to our starting balance of £0 - quite a hike. Still not too bad for a three course dinner you might say, but ultimately I can't not compare Palm Court Brasserie with the vastly superior Brown's. I've been eating at Brown's rather a lot of late - it's pretty much become my default destination for casual, quality dining - and everything has been consistently excellent (OK, some duff shallot vinegar with my oysters let things down a little bit the other day, if you really want me to get picky). What's even better is that if you register as a 'Friend of Brown's' on their website right now, you can download a reuseable voucher entitling two people to a two course dinner including a bottle of house wine for just £29. Even adding a couple of puds won't push that figure too far north of the £40 we ended up shelling out at Palm Court for an experience that just wasn't as good.

Joe Public however can't seem to get enough of Palm Court Brasserie; whether it's the special offers, or the location, or some seriously good food that just didn't reach our table this time, something brings the punters flocking in - the entire room was completely packed, with vacated tables being reoccupied in rapid succession. And with that level of business, it's clear that the ones really reaping the Rewards here aren't the Toptable faithful, but the people behind Palm Court Brasserie.

Palm Court Brasserie, 39 King Street, Covent Garden, London, WC2E 8JS tel: 020 7240 2939 www.palmcourtbrasserie.co.uk>

Brown's, 47 Maddox Street, London W1R 9LA and branches. www.browns-restaurants.co.uk