J. Sheekey

J. Sheekey, the fish and seafood specialist hidden just off St Martin's Lane, is the equally successful but never-quite-as-famous sibling of Scott's in Mayfair; Maggie Gyllenhaal to Scott's' Jake. It's also one of my absolutely favourite restaurants of all time, ever. 

From my first visit about eight years ago with my then boyfriend to last night's brief but wonderful visit with my gorgeous friend Caroline, it's never disappointed, and while the prices might occasionally cause a sharp intake of breath - I'm still in therapy from the time I blithely said to mum 'Now don't worry about the prices, you just order what you like' only for her to 'like' half a lobster and the roasted mixed shellfish -  there are some comparative bargains to be had.

During July and August, if you eat pre-theatre as Caroline and I did - Sheekey's is perfectly located for it - their superlative fish and chips and a glass of house wine can be had for just £15.75, about the same as at Brown's just across the courtyard except at Brown's there isn't a top-hatted doorman to greet you. From the a la carte menu, the justifiably famous fish pie is a very reasonable £13.50 and is pleasingly biased towards the piscine side of the filling/topping axis. At weekends, there's a set lunch menu offering three courses for a very fair £25.50.

What I'd really recommend however is that you save Sheekey's for those special occasions - anniversaries, birthdays, BAFTA wins - when you or whoever's paying feel inclined to blow the budget and you can indulge yourself in the full array of sparklingly fresh oysters, perfect crustacea and finest fish caught that day, along with a bottle or two from the excellent and not-too-terrfiyingly-priced wine list. 

As well as superb food you'll enjoy superlative service, handsome decor and, if star spotting's your thing, no doubt a glimpse of a theatrical dame or motion picture knight or two. Booking's a bugger but worth persevering at; if you can't stand the struggle the more informal Oyster Bar next door doesn't require (but accepts) reservations and keeps some seats free for walk-ins.

The smart wood panelling, contemporary art and black and white photos of stage and screen stars through the ages make Sheekey's a very grown-up place (although children are welcome I've never seen any) and if there's anything to criticise about it - and I really do struggle to think of anything - it's that the atmosphere might at times feel a little too hushed and the general ambience a little too formal for some tastes. While there's always a sense of celebration in the air here, as a venue it's neither suited to nor intended for boisterous parties or casual dining; it's a serious place serving serious food, and photography - of others or of one's meal - would be as welcome as a bone in the filleted Dover sole.

Other restaurants might be more fun, or creative, or accessible than J. Sheekey, but very few indeed are actually better. I hope that you'll try it, and that when you do you'll love it as much as Maggie loves Jake.

J. Sheekey, 28-32 St. Martin's Court, London WC2N 4AL Tel: 020 7240 2565 http://www.j-sheekey.co.uk 

The Mount Street Deli

As the regular reader - go on dear, wave so we can all see you - of this blog will know, I'm a huge fan of, and something of a pro bono brand ambassador for, Caprice Holdings. Until very recently I'd never found a restaurant I liked more than The Ivy; the place which stole its place in my heart, though only by a very narrow margin, was its stable-mate Dean Street Townhouse. There's nowhere in town I trust more to look after my precious mother than J. Sheekey, and I return time and time (and time) again for gossipy, glamorous nights at Rivington Grill. My affection for the company was further cemented last year by their generous support of an event I organised for my beloved Crusaid.

You can imagine then that I was rather excited to hear that the group has opened its first retail outlet in the form of The Mount Street Deli, just opposite another of the jewels in its crown, Scott's. I was asked along as a guest, on the second day of opening, to sample some of the products on offer, and from what I saw (and tasted), Caprice have another hit on their hands.

For the uninitiated, Mount Street is a very elegant thoroughfare (albeit currently blighted by seemingly incessant roadworks) running from Park Lane to Grosvenor Square. Always popular with the extremely well-heeled residents of Mayfair for its galleries, restaurants and specialist shops - gunmaker Purdey occupies a corner plot across from haute china supplier Thomas Goode - in recent years Mount Street has become synonymous with luxury fashion and is now home to many of London's highest-end boutiques, attracting wealthy local and international shoppers. The Mount Street Deli brings something genuinely new and completely suited to the mix - a delicatessen-cum-cafe stocking produce of sufficiently impeccable quality as to appeal to the street's very discerning clientele.

The food offering falls into two main categories, each of which has clearly been very thoroughly thought through. The eat-in offering - there's seating for 16 inside and 8 on a cute terrace - majors on fresh, home-made, seasonal and organic cafe staples, mostly British but including some smashing Italian salumi alongside menu favourites from some of Caprice Holdings' restaurants. The take-away selection is focused on the ne plus ultra of ready meals; dishes prepared in the kitchens of and usually only served in the members-only environs of the private clubs in the Birley Group, itself now a part of Caprice. There's also a lovingly sourced and carefully edited selection of preserves, chutneys, breads and confectionery ideal for giving as gifts or impressing dinner party guests.

From the cold counter I tried a variety of treats including plump, nutty jewelled cous cous, a few slices of silky salami and moreish mortadella, a mighty fine sausage roll (which I'll admit I would have preferred hot) and some lovely plump, briny olives which would have been perfect had they come wrapped in a vodka Martini. The hot dish of the day was a boldly savoury beef hot pot of which every spoonful spoke of slow, patient stewing, stirring and seasoning. A selection plate from the afternoon tea and puddings menu enabled me to sample the Deli's carrot cake, chocolate brownie and millionaire's shortbread out of which not just the latter will delight the area's super-rich.

The faultlessly enthusiastic manager Hannah Gutteridge is very proud of her coffee and an accompanying latte was excellent. What I really would have liked was a glass of wine; alas for the time being at least The Mount Street Deli is unlicensed meaning one can only browse and possibly take away the interesting and very reasonably priced wines on offer (a 1997 Pauillac at £75 caught my dipsomaniac eye). Although that remained on the shelf, I did leave with an armful of some of the quirkier goodies from the deli section including  a star anise and pink peppercorn mustard from Henshelwoods and some addictive chocolate lime biscuits from Island Bakery Organics.

Overall, I liked The Mount Street Deli  as much as I like its sister restaurants and bars and will definitely be back both to eat in - especially when the veal ravioli from Daphne's is on the menu - and to pick up some of what must be the poshest ready meals in London. The ultimate seal of approval however comes not from me but from the wonderful, elegant American lady who struck up conversation with me over coffee. Lucky (and, clearly, wealthy) enough to live 'just over the road' from The Mount Street Deli, she had already taken home dinner from it on day one and was now back on day two for coffee, a bite to eat and to meet her equally elegant husband. That the locals have taken the place so enthusiastically to their hearts before the paint is barely dry is a sure sign that Caprice Holdings have, yet again, got it absolutely right.

The Mount Street Deli, 100 Mount Street, London W1K 2TG Tel: 020 7499 6843 http://www.themountstreetdeli.co.uk/

Bistrotheque

Think of ‘dinner and a show’ and you’re most likely to conjure up images of taking your mum to a matinee followed by an early supper somewhere swanky – Les Mis then Sheekey’s always works for Mother Wright – or for the really cosmopolitan among you, of watching les girls at the Crazy Horse on Avenue George V in Paris while nibbling côtelets d’agneau. You’re less likely, I would wager, to envisage feasting on bone marrow and snails before watching a three-piece transgender ‘frockabilly’ band in a converted warehouse in Hackney. But that’s exactly what I experienced last weekend at Bistrotheque, and what an enjoyable experience it was.

When it first opened about five years ago, Bistrotheque was that rarest of entities: something completely new, at least to London. While multi-purpose restaurant and cabaret spaces have been around for centuries, Bistrotheque eschewed the safe formula of mediocre, over-priced food matched with predictable, traditional entertainment and instead founded itself as a space for alternative, challenging performance, with the option of fine dining in its attractive restaurant space.

To add to its uniqueness, Bistrotheque opened in what was then – and to be honest, remains – the middle of nowhere, adopting one can only assume the bold mantra of ‘If we build it, they will come’. Come they did, and still do; Bistrotheque was an instant hit with the fashionable east London crowd and on the Saturday night we visited was doing a roaring trade despite its isolation.

The lure for us – myself, Alyn, Elaine, birthday boy PJ and his husband Michael – was the aforementioned frockabilly band, The Frantastics, fronted by Frances, erstwhile hostess of the temporarily-homeless Club Lola. While it’s perfectly possible to just come for the show (and I would highly recommend that you do come), the chance to make an evening of it and enjoy dinner beforehand was very welcome. I’m glad we did take the chance, because the dining experience was, bar a few glitches, very good.

There’s a choice of two dining rooms, the all-white, vaulted-ceilinged main room and the smaller, more intimate wood-panelled Oak Room. Wanting to celebrate PJ’s big day with some degree of privacy we opted for the latter, and were given a large, attractively dressed table in the centre of the charming candlelit room. The menu – printed, with immense practicality, on one’s place setting – reads appealingly; it’s modern, fashionable bistro fare as you’d expect from a modern, fashionable bistro.

I loved my starter of bone marrow, sautéed snails, frisee and toast, a generous helping of inch-thick cross sections of bone each oozing with rich, butter-soft marrow which paired deliciously with the garlicky snails and bitter leaves. A starter of mixed beetroot salad, herbs, orange and horseradish, chosen by all of the rest of the table, divided opinion. While one described it as ‘the perfect starter’, both ‘aesthetically pleasing’ and ‘soothing’ (sorry to go all Zagat on you here with the inverted commas, but I’m quoting from an email), another found the dish to be short on flavour and overly dry, ‘similar to eating a prettily coloured piece of card’.

Mains were universally liked. My steak tartare with chips and green salad was excellent, although the salad had to be replaced as it was so over-salted as to be inedible (who on Earth salts salad? I wondered). Alyn’s half roast chicken with garlic and wild rocket was a simple success, the meat moist, succulent and just fragranced with the garlic. Roast sea bass with creamed leeks, crab, tomatoes and gremolata was pronounced ‘simply delicious’ by PJ, and the two vegetarians at the table highly praised the fennel and oregano gratin, baked flat mushrooms and Taleggio. There’s clearly an expert touch being deployed in the kitchen, the subtle layering of textures and flavours in every dish showing both skill and imagination.

It being a birthday there had of course to be cake, and I had pre-arranged a chocolate and raspberry one which was brought to the table with the candles and fanfare requisite of such occasions. Once the candles had been blown out it was taken away and, at no extra charge, re-plated as individual portions with some excellent vanilla ice-cream. I thought this showed great generosity on the venue’s part, and was a real highlight of the meal. We tried additionally a fruit crumble and crème brulée, both of which were tooth-janglingly over-sweet; viz the green salad, somewhere among the commis chefs there’s a heavy-handedness which needs addressing.

Drinks were all pink; we started off with a bottle or two of a lovely light Prosecco rosé, before moving on to a 2008 Cotes de Provence, Domaine Gavoty Melopée which proved a successful match for our many and varied food choices. The wine list is strong, mostly French, and like the food ungreedily-priced. Tap water was offered and constantly replenished, earning extra brownie points. Service throughout was delightful, with special mention going to restaurant manager Jason who accommodated my extremely demanding table requirements and miscellaneous enquiries with charm and enthusiasm.

The bill, for three courses, lakes of good wine and 12.5% optional service which we were very glad to pay, came to about £60 a head; with less wine than we put away and sans the birthday cake you could get away for much less. That figure also included our entrance to the show, which for the record was just fabulous. Frances, Lauren and Jenny - the fantastic Frantastics – entertained us and a packed room with a foot-stomping, barn-storming set of covers and original material, including the oh-so-contemporary ‘I Fell In Love In A Chatroom’ – check it out on the Frantastics' website.

Michelin – an infinitely more respectable and reliable restaurant guide than this - says of its highest-scoring three star restaurants that they are worth not just a detour, but the journey itself. Given Bistrotheque’s location, you have little choice but to make a special journey, not to mention a few detours, to get there, but while I’m not sure it’s quite the sort of place I’ll be bringing Mother Wright in a hurry, I’ll certainly be making the journey again before too long.

Bistrotheque, 23-27 Wadeson Street, London, E2 9DR. Tel: 020 8983 7900 http://www.bistrotheque.com

The Lobster Pot

The Lobster Pot in Kennington is lauded as a local institution and even before finally making my first visit last Saturday, I had heard and read a great deal about the quirky boat-themed interior, amusing sounds-of-the-sea soundtrack (long before Heston came up with the notion, it was being done here) and the supposedly very high quality of the seafood on offer served with pride by chef-patron Herve Regent. All were present and correct, it really is a charmingly eccentric set-up (ambience snobs would hate it; those of us with a sense of humour will embrace it as part of the experience) and attentive if occasionally remote staff add to the feeling of being in a place into a which a lot of thought has gone.

What detracts from the experience, however, is the shockingly high prices for what is, to be kind, no more than a local, casual dining room. I know, having grown up by the sea and been brought up on seafood fresh from the morning's boats, that fish and shellfish of the quality served here doesn't come cheap, but come ON, Monsieur Regent: why no starters under £8.50 or mains – grilled chicken in this case – under £16.50? Sure these prices don't shock in the West End, or in local fine-diners such as Chez Bruce or Trinity, but this is Kennington, not Kensington, and for the bill to come to just over £100 for two courses for two and one bottle of wine is outrageous.

What did we eat to rack up such a whopping bill? We started with the large seafood platter for two at £25.50, adding half a lobster for an additional £12.50, and it certainly was large, groaning with half a crab, five oysters, clams, winkles, whelks, a huge langoustine and rather too many shrimps both pink and brown. The half a lobster was more like 3/8 of a lobster, lacking its claw which I thought cheeky, and was fine but unremarkable though in fairness I've always thought lobster over-rated. All of it was very good and undoubtedly super-fresh, and certainly justified the price tag, but I felt that it was the only starter on the menu which did.

Mains were OK, but my bouillabaisse at £18.50, served in a shallow fish-shaped dish rather than the deep vat I've come to expect, bore the scars of having stood under a heat-lamp for rather too long, probably while we were finishing the seafood platter. For one of the house's supposed specialities, it wasn't particularly...special. My partner Alyn's grilled tiger prawns – a whacking £19.50! – similarly looked (and tasted) as if they had been grilled for about five minutes too long. A couple of the ten or so prawns tasted ‘not quite right’ (his words) but he couldn't put his finger on it enough to make a complaint worthwhile.

The promised accompaniment of ‘a selection of vegetables’ constituted one new potato, one floret of broccoli (a broccolo?) and a quenelle of something orange; carrot and swede mash perhaps. This smacked of a chef attempting to finesse presentation in a restaurant where presentation is secondary – in a good way – to the experience, and therefore jarred. Bizarrely there are no side-orders on the menu, so one has to take this measly selection or lump it. It was all so uniformly average-to-good that we just didn't have the enthusiasm to bother with desserts.

The wine list is, like Nicolas Sarkozy, short and entirely French, with all the usual suspects from Muscadet to Beaujolais via Rose d'Anjou. Our Muscadet, not too dear at £18.50, was nice enough but not one of the best, lacking the floral oomph that typifies better examples of this safe seafood pairing.

To give The Lobster Pot its due, the prices and no-more-than-quite-good standard of the food don't seem to have deterred anyone; the place was absolutely packed from 8.30 onwards and in addition to several other couples and a downcast family party, a large table of regulars (we deduced this from the effusive welcome they received and the entire staff's dedication to their table before ours) were enthusiastically and noisily shovelling down a mountain of seafood and bottle after bottle of Veuve Clicquot at £72.50 a pop – what credit crunch?.

The place appears to do perfectly well from a devoted local clientele without needing to go the extra mile to attract and retain casual visitors. I won't be going back; if I want superior food at prices to make my eyes water, I'll stick with my all-time favourite J.Sheekey where the final bill is at least mitigated by the five-star quality of the whole experience.

The Lobster Pot, 3 Kennington Lane, London SE11 4RG Tel: 020 7583 5556 www.lobsterpotrestaurant.co.uk