Peter Barnes

IF, like me, you are an unconfirmed but unattached bachelor, reviewing restaurants has its hazards. The benefits are obvious. What other occupation gives one the chance to take beautiful women out to lav- ish dinners at someone else's expense? What a golden opportunity to pursue one's amorous aspirations without having to make the usual invidious choice between lust and thrift. But several problems pre- sent themselves. First, your duties as a reviewer handicap your efforts as an admir- er. Your seductive banter is likely to be less effective if you keep having to interrupt your romantic murmurings to note down the saltiness of the potage St Germain.

Second, the would-be lover is handicapped by the fact that his exploits will, at least to some degree, be recorded. It is hard for that aura of cosy intimacy and male mystery to survive the glare of publicity. Furthermore, your guest will be the object of unseemly speculation among your friends, Is this an old flame, they will ask, or a new conquest? Or will it simply confirm their suspicions that, far from being the lady-killing man- about-town you would have them believe, you in fact spend most of your evenings at home reading books on bridge conventions?

I decided to try to avoid such gossip by inviting someone I had never met. So I put in a call to the much sought-after literary agent, Atinabel Hardman. Her voice on the phone sounded understandably dubious, either because she had never heard of me, or, perhaps more worryingly, because she had. But the lure of The Spectator's largesse overcame her reservations.

We met at Saint M, one of three restau- rants in Ian Schrager's newly opened St Martin's Lane hotel. In the bad old days, hotel restaurants, with the exception of the Connaught, were not places in which one would choose to eat. Hoteliers relied on a captive clientele and the absence of much competition elsewhere. No longer. Marco Pierre White started the trend by setting up his own restaurant in the Hyde Park Hotel. Then Pierre Koffman took Tante Claire to the Berkeley. And, out of London, Ray- mond Blanc long ago set up a hotel around his restaurant at the Manoir aux Quat' Saisons. Today, hotel restaurants expect to be judged on their own merits.

Mr Schrager is famous for his cutting- edge designs. In the Royalton, New York, even the wash-basins are works of art,

although turning on the water is a chal- lenge to one's powers of lateral thinking. Saint M is more sober. The room is a large rectangle. A wall of dark wood faces a plate-glass window. And in the middle a square bar offers drinks from ingredients such as 'muddled limes' and 'rain vodka'.

After an ice-breaking glass of , fizz, Annabel started with a scallop risotto and I with some foie gras. Both were disappoint- ing. Any schoolboy knows that to make risot- to, you add the stock to the rice and not the other way round. The individual grains of rice should be swollen to plumpness by the slow absorption of liquid, and cohere in a viscous sauce without losing their individual- ity. Annabel's 'risotto' was like a cheesy rice soup, camouflaging a few lonely scallops.

At its best, foie gras can offer a sensual pleasure like no other food. That taut skin, barely restraining those soft mouthfuls of warm adiposity, are like the breast of a sun- bathing goddess. Saint M's foie gras — small, dark, and surmounting a mound of potato puree — had the texture of a marathon runner's foot, tough and leathery on the outside, virtually raw within.

For my main course, I chose a halibut steak, heavily promoted by the waiter. It was all right but unexceptional — not quite cooked close to the bone, and not quite fresh enough to benefit from being served rare. The accompanying home-made chips were tough in the middle; I suspected they had not been parboiled for long enough before frying.

Annabel was by now entering fully into the spirit of the evening. 'Such fun to be able to criticise the food when you are being taken out,' she enthused. Her veal chop was declared over-large, tough and lacking the advertised accompaniment of wild mushrooms. Her highest praise was reserved for the autumn vegetables, which were 'not overcooked'.

We decided to give the puddings the chance to overturn our verdict on the earli- er courses. No such luck. 'Tinned,' Annabel winced after a mouthful of my peach tart. Her figs, meanwhile, had been so doused in cassis that it was difficult to taste what fruit we were eating.

It may be that our experience was not typ- ical. We visited on a Sunday night, when it is always harder to obtain fresh ingredients, and it is possible that the principal chef was not cooking. And the service, although will- ing, showed signs of teething problems: the waiter told us that some wines on their list had not yet arrived, and confused our pud- ding orders with those for another table.

But although the food and service would have been unexceptional in a local brasserie, they were frankly not acceptable in a restaurant with aspirations to quality — particularly not at the prices we were paying. The courses we chose were more expensive than average, and we drank a half-bottle of Pouilly-Fuisse and another of youngish claret. But our bill, including a cheeky 15 per cent service charge, came to a jaw-dropping £158.87.

If you are the sort of person who must go to a new restaurant just because it's new, who does not mind what food tastes like as long as it looks good, and who is prepared to drop upwards of 000 for the experience, then by all means eat at Saint M. But, for me, it was a triumph of style over sub- stance. As we were leaving, I suggested that Annabel inspect the wash-basins in the ladies' loo, to see if they were as wacky as at the Royalton. No, she reported back. But the tap had come off in her hand.

Saint M, St Martin's Lane Hotel, 45 St Mar- tin's Lane, London WC2. Tel: 0171 300 5544. Open for lunch and dinner, Monday to Sunday.

Peter Barnes writes for the Economist