Signor Zilli

From the breathless write-up of Signor Zilli on Toptable, on the basis of which I booked for dinner with Andrew last night, I was expecting celeb-chef Aldo Zilli’s Soho flagship to be something akin to Cipriani – super-chic decor, a bustling atmosphere and wall-to-wall beautiful people, with the food taking only a bit part in the whole drama of the affair. Not so, in fact the exact inverse: the food at Signor Zilli is excellent but just about everything else leaves a lot to be desired.

Let’s start with the room; well, Signor Zilli opened in 1988, when every posh Italian (or those with aspirations to be) had to have frescoed walls, plump padded chairs and mirrors galore; Signor Zilli had them then, and still has them now, seemingly unchanged from opening day. This gives the ground floor dining space (there’s a twin in the basement) the air of a low-rent Rome hotel’s breakfast room. The welcome, from the very Italian maitre d’-cum-head-waiter (a Giacomo of all trades?) was effusive and charming, which he continued to be throughout the evening, but his treatment of the waiting staff even in front of customers was brusque and overbearing and no-one wants Jekyll and Hyde supervising their supper.

There are some nice, if basic service touches, for example good fresh onion focaccia is provided free and regularly replenished, even if of the oil and vinegar provided for dunking only the former gets topped up. Wine and water is poured only when one is absolutely ready for it, and tap water is offered proactively which always gets a gold star from me. Toilets, accessed via a very low-ceilinged staircase (not good when you’re as tall as I am) are probably spotless but look grubby and tatty; all-in-all, the whole place feels unloved, adding weight to the popular belief that if a chef is spending as much time writing books, flogging breakfast cereals and appearing on TV as - say – Aldo Zilli, he can’t really be spending that much time looking after the restaurants which bear his name.

Saying that, whoever actually is in the kitchen is turning out some extremely good food. Everything we ate was great, from the crayfish, orange and avocado salad we both chose as our starter, via my delicious main course of tiger prawn, squash and pea risotto, to our shared pud of chocolate torino (chocolate fondant, basically, but a really good one) with pistachio ice cream. But that’s only when, or indeed if, you actually get your food; the dessert was (scant) compensation from the maitre d’ for the kitchen having got my main course order wrong not once, but twice, meaning that by the time my risotto finally arrived Andrew had all but finished his pancetta-wrapped salmon fillet with tomato and red onion salad, again very good but rendered less enjoyable by the discomfort of having to eat it while I sat there foodless. While sitting waiting, no one offered any explanations or provided any updates, but looking on the bright side it at least meant extra gossiping time with Andrew which is never a bad thing.

Another positive was the wine, a 2006 Grecanico which for a house white was more than usually palatable and reasonable enough at £16 (it says £15.90 on the wine list but I’d not the inclination to argue this point), but I must fault the wine list itself for leaping up in increments of £4-£5 rather than the usual £2-£3; not very credit-crunch friendly Aldo, even if the food is perfectly reasonable price-wise.

And that, come to think of it, is probably Signor Zilli’s only real selling point: for the quality, in this part of town, the food’s quite good value, even if as we did you eschew the Toptable special offer menu (with its dull, chosen-for-cheapness options) and go for the much more appealing menu del giorno at only four quid a head more. Maybe we just visited on an off-night; maybe any other night of the week Signor Zilli really is filled with glitterati rather than an office party and a couple of couples as on our visit. Perhaps the beau monde of Soho see past the tatty frescoes, stained chairs and inept (though sweetly enthusiastic) service and see something I don’t? Perhaps...but I doubt it. I feel like I’m giving Signor Zilli, both restaurant and restaurateur, a kicking here, and I don’t want to; it’s not a particularly bad place, and some aspects are very good, but overall it’s just...fine. And these days that just doesn’t cut it, when everyone’s being more cautious about where they spend their eating out money and everyone’s a critic (!)

Feeling a bit flat after the Signor Zilli experience, we took ourselves over the river to the fabulous Skylon for coffee and cocktails and had at least three times as much fun as we’d had at dinner in less than a third of the time. We enthused about how successfully Skylon brings together ambience, appearance, service and quality whatever the time of day or night to provide a really enjoyable experience – perhaps Signor Zilli should get his notebook out and come take lessons on how it’s done...

Signor Zilli, 41 Dean Street, London W1D 4PY Tel: 020 7734 3924 www.zillialdo.com

Skylon, Southbank Centre, Belvedere Road, London SE1 8XX Tel: 020 7654 7800 www.skylonrestaurant.com

Automat

Automat is probably about as near to a neighbourhood caff as you'll get in Mayfair. Located at the top end of fashionably grand Dover Street, it's a lovely space, with four distinct dining areas each with a distinct mood, from the informal checkerboard-tiled brasserie at the entrance, via the tram-car shaped dining room with its intimate booths, to the large, high-ceilinged, light white garden room which looks out onto a leafy courtyard. It was in this latter that I enjoyed a super lunch with Scotty, aka The Canadian, who has adopted Automat as his lunchtime diner of choice now that he has taken, like a duck to water, to the glamour of a W1-based lifestyle.

Billing itself as 'fusing London's pleasure-seeking social appetite with New York's inimitable style', Automat certainly succeeds in bringing NYC-style casual dining to the capital. The menu covers all the bases, from Stateside staples such as burgers, mac 'n' cheese and crab 'Po Boy' sandwiches to more European brasserie staples like steak tartare and rack of lamb. There's a small - and pricy - selection of steaks which the menu proudly boasts are all USDA-certified, hormone-free and corn-fed, rather like Scotty in fact. True to our respective continents of birth, Scotty went with an American option - mac 'n' cheese at £12, adding bacon for an extra £1 - and I went for steak tartare at £14.

Both were extremely good, and extremely large. Presentation scored highly; I particularly liked the way that my tartare was served 'deconstructed', with the large helping of superbly fresh beef being served naked, side-by-side with a dish of very finely chopped parsley, capers, onion and gherkin with Worcestershire and Tabasco sauces on the side to add according to taste. Given that my taste in steak tartare, and indeed all food, extends to parsley never being allowed anywhere near it, I was glad to have the option to leave it out entirely. The rest however I joyfully piled into the mix, and proceeded to shovel the lot down with the help of the crisp, salty carta di musica bread which accompanied the tasty green side salad.

For afters, Scotty recommended that we share the Mississippi Mud Pie with Pistachio ice-cream (£6) and both his choice and his suggestion that we split it proved wise. It was a hulking great slice of light, almost souffle-like gooey deliciousness, perfectly complemented by the salty-sweetness of the ice cream, and given interesting texture by a scattering of chocolate biscuit crumbs; I struggled to limit myself to eating only my allocated half. Service had, overall, been excellent but when our waitress prematurely tried to clear the plate while it still had a mouthful left on it, I nearly took her arm off.

Being lunchtime - OK, that's not normally an excuse I know, but Scotty was due back at work later this afternoon - we drank modestly, but I thoroughly enjoyed my one glass of Norton Malbec with my main (very reasonable at £6) and glass of Muscat de Rivesaltes with my (half!) pudding. Together with a G&T for Scotty, a bottle of sparkling water - I know, we should be rejecting bottled water to save the planet but until Thames Water work out how to make tap water sparkle there'll always be a place in my life for San Pellegrino - and 12.5% service, the bill was a high-ish £62 but that felt reasonable for the quality and class of what had been an entirely flawless meal.

I liked Automat, as is probably clear, a hell of a lot. It's easy to see why, even on a Monday lunchtime in the midst of a recession , the place was packed with an easy-on-the-eye crowd of Mayfair matrons, hedge fund runners, business lunchers and fathers-and-sons, plus of course (on table 45, a desirable corner banquette) a pair of strapping 6'3"+ gay boys yabbering away about life, love, politics and threeways over mac 'n' cheese and steak tartare. I'd love - and intend - to go back soon for dinner, to see if Automat is as appealing by night as it is by day; getting everything as right as it does, I can't imagine it being otherwise. For those of us who unlike Scotty aren't quite lucky enough to have Automat as our local pit-stop diner, it's certainly worth making the trip to Dover Street to share in the experience.

Automat, 33 Dover Street, Mayfair, London W1S 4NF Tel: 020 7499 3033 www.automat-london.com

Rivington Grill

My first visit to Rivington Grill, about five years ago, was memorable for all the wrong reasons. It was not long after the place had opened - to rave reviews - and a fashion-savvy, early-adopter girlfriend had booked a large table for Saturday lunch to celebrate her birthday.

It should have been an exciting opportunity to try out the coolest new place in town - Shoreditch was still very underground in those days - but alas I had tried out rather too many of the uncool places in town the night before, drunk myself rotten, made it to the restaurant only by the grace of God and four Nurofen, and was feeling absolutely fetid.

A 'medicinal' Bloody Mary did me no good at all and it is with shame and regret that I remember to this day my starter of braised calf's cheeks and beetroot shoots coming back up looking pretty much unchanged from when it had gone down. Given that at the time the head honcho in the kitchen was none other than cooking deity Mark Hix, this less-than-favourable emetic reaction to the food was akin to blaspheming in church. Rivington and I did not get off to the best of starts.

Fast forward to summer 2009 and Rivington and I have reacquainted ourselves; I now work in no-longer-as-cool-as-it-was Shoreditch and my bestie Kate lives in so-hip-it-hurts Dalston, so it's handy for both of us and we've paid two visits recently, the second because the first was so damn good. Mark Hix may have moved on (to set up on his own just round the corner, so there's no danger of him taking revenge for the calf's cheeks debacle) but his signature style of simple cooking of seasonal, local ingredients is indelibly stamped on the Rivington's menu.

On visit one, I was delighted to see gull's eggs with celery salt and mayonnaise on the starters as I'm a complete egg addict and had been dying to try this variety, new to me but very much a late-Spring delicacy. I wasn't disappointed; the large-ish egg had a distinctive, rich flavour and unctuous creamy consistency that amply demonstrated what the fuss (and price - £5.50 per egg) was all about.

On our next visit I opted for the delicious-sounding chilled beetroot soup with horseradish cream; velvety-smooth and slightly-sweet - my guess would be that chicken stock is used - it was a light, refreshing earthy delight. Kate liked her first course of Evesham Beetroot and St. Tola goat's cheese salad so much the first time that she had it again on the second, on both occasions pronouncing herself very pleased with it, particularly the tangy freshness of the cheese.

Main courses offer a wide variety of meat and fish dishes (nothing for vegetarians I note, but that's not for here) and of the four we tried over our two dinners, three were excellent. I loved the breaded rose veal with mushrooms and wilted nettles, the huge, finger-thick escalope eating wonderfully with the tiny ceps and herby leaves; Kate was similarly enthusiastic about her dived Lyme Bay scallops with wild garlic and bacon, both dishes politely allowing the main ingredient to shine with the imaginative accompaniments simply adding polish.

Grilled lemon sole with sea purslane and brown shrimp butter was equally good, the excellent - and substantial - fish swimming along most agreeably with the salty, fleshy herbs. The only slight disappointment was the Barnsley lamb chop with kidneys and bubble and squeak; the generously proportioned and undoubtedly well-sourced chop was sadly not well-sauced, crying out as it was for say some redcurrant or mint jelly, neither of which the kitchen was able to provide. This isn't to say that the dish was at all bad; it just wasn't quite as good as the other three triumphs.

Despite the sheer size of the main courses (and my having successfully kept everything down), we nonetheless managed to sample the cheeses and desserts. Whereas some restaurants which generally do well on locality and seasonality can rather give up when it comes to puds, Rivington does not, and everything we tried made the very best use of the season's best fruits: gooseberry pie with Jersey cream, Eton Mess, and raspberry burnt cream (I love the fact that Rivington's Britishness extends even to eschewing the use of 'creme brule'). For me though, as a fromageophile (yep - totally made that one up) the real highlight was the cheese plate which as well as a lovely Gorwydd Caerphilly featured one of my personal favourites Harbourne Blue - a rare, pasteurised goat's milk blue which has all the punch but less of the saltiness of many cow's milk blues.

There's an excellent wine list starting at a very reasonable £15.00 and not going too dizzyingly high after that; it's French-biased but also offers a variety of New World choices to suit every palate and wallet. On our first visit we opted for a terrfic 2007 Picpoul de Pinet, a lovely off-dry fruity white and an undeservedly under-rated grape which I've been enjoying of late, and on our second we embraced the summer and picked the Berry's House Rose Vin de Pays de L'Aude, a complete bargain at fifteen quid and as good as you'd expect from anything Berry Bros would put their name to.

This very fair approach to pricing extends to the food too; prices are all absolutely reasonable to the extent that neither of our bills, both for three courses, wine and service, exceeded £100, unusual these days at this level of quality. Combine this with excellent service - just the right side of informal, unfussy and friendly - and truly stylish decor (there's a Tracey Emin neon on one wall for Chrissakes!) and you can see why this is still a hard-to-beat hit in a neighbourhood which, unlike when Rivington opened, now has a wealth of high-end fashionable restaurants for diners to choose from. I might once have been sick in Rivington Grill, but I'll certainly never be sick of it.

Rivington Grill & Bar, 28-30 Rivington Street, Shoreditch, London EC2A 3DZ Tel: 020 7729 7053 www.rivingtongrill.co.uk