1111111111MIEllitill111111111011111111.
I HAVE ALWAYS found Chelsea Har- bour a forbidding prospect. There is some- thing plastic and soulless about this vast estate of luxurious flats and white and glassy offices; the hotel with its swimming club and those sad, bobbing boats in its marina; the perturbing maze of walkways. It is as if Fritz Lang got there first and emptied the set.
But a restaurant under the joint partner- ship of Marco Pierre White and Michael Caine is a promising sign of life. Their new restaurant, The Canteen (on the site of the old Waterfront), adds to the little gastro- nomic(ish) enclave of Linley's Deals and Lo's Memories of China and, merely a few weeks since the builders moved out of it, seems as busy and bustling as the dead zone around it is forlorn, still and barren.
But with Marco one expects surprises, and the first surprise is that it is no can- teen. David Collins, the designer, responsi- ble, among other creations, for The Square in St James's, has worked to counter the staccato mood of the immediate environ- ment and brought into existence a mutedly grand dining-room, such as one would find adjoining a casino in a hushed but well- appointed hotel. Just as in The Square, the inspiration is largely the Sixties, with the real rough gawkiness of the period given a smooth, Nineties, designer-smart gloss. By the burnished brass and midnight-blue bar at the entrance, pale yellow walls are stud- ded with large clubs, diamonds, spades and hearts (the heart recurs, etched with Marco Pierre White's initials, as a motif on the menu) and these shapes pattern the room: diamonds in a harlequin pattern on the menu; clubs and diamonds on the lights; playing cards are woven into the thick cladding of the banquettes that line the room. Light oozes out from behind brass and glass sunbursts, from squat-shaded lamps, so that the pale yellow walls glisten among the pale wood parquetry and smooth-napped tables.
And if Marco Pierre White's menu is considerably cheaper than at his Wandsworth HQ, the food is still nothing like canteen fare. White himself is not in the kitchen, but his two representatives, Stephen Terry and Tim Hughes, both from Harvey's, do their boss proud.
The same menu serves for lunch and din- ner, and combines quiet simplicity with voluptuous luxury. On my first visit, after
some indecisive ordering, I looked envious- ly at the plate of langoustine spaghetti the woman at the next table was brought. I lusted after it, even as I delved pleasurably into my own scallops, baked between shells cemented together with soft pastry, and flavoured, gently but intriguingly, with shards of lemon peel and cinnamon bark.
This first visit's sampling took in salmon, soft as mousseline, topped with a parsley- flecked and capery crust, and confit of rab- bit, seared to salty, bacony pink on the outside, sweet and tender within, and came, respectively, with a tangle of paper- thin noodles and braised cabbage and a sphere of fondant potatoes. After these, we finished with a divinely caramelised pear tarte tatin, the plate on which it sat sticky with lemon-sharp syrup.
With a couple of glasses of champagne and another two of velvety Cotes du Luberon, much water and no coffee, the bill for dinner came to £65. On a second visit, at lunch time, nothing disappointed. I got my own chance to have the spaghetti with langoustines,. the pasta light and pliant — not the heavily eggy stodge which restaurants so often provide, making one long for simple, factory-produced dried stuff — with the fat, soft, so soft seafood, peeled and plump on top, in a pale coral cream: so consuming, all conversation was impossible. A starter for more modest eaters, the herb salad, was light and aro- matic and left room for lobster, split and grilled and smeared with garlic butter, with its bowl of sandy chips. Sausages and mash were as sausages and mash are, but I would have preferred a more coarsely ground sausage and less puréed mash. Pudding we shared: a parfait of tiramisu decorated with gold leaf. Tiramisu has become something of a tired stalwart of modern kitchens. Here it was reborn magnificently as a coffee-tinged zabaglione-ish iced cream sandwiched between discs of booze-soaked sponge and dusted with cocoa.
With two bottles of water, the bill came to £39, without tip. Although the propri- etors have made clear their intention to keep prices where they are, I cannot believe that'll be possible. Maybe it's true, but I'd go now just in case.
The Canteen, Chelsea Harbour, SW10; tel
Previous page
