THERE IS something a bit off in talking about how
restaurants choose to acknowl- edge or accommodate the recession. After all, saving £15 on a bill is largely hardly to the point. Going out to eat at all is not what you do when you're hard up. But those for whom economy is a matter of taste or inclination rather than pressing need are the ones to whom customer- starved restaurateurs need to appeal. Marco Pierre White's recessionary gambit was to open a cheaper, less rarefied dining- room for those who couldn't stretch to Harvey's prices. The difficulty is that his new restaurant is grand enough to make it a socially acceptable substitute for the real thing. He has entered into competition with himself. Bruno Loubet has been can- nier. For some reason his masters at the Inn on the Park have allowed him to do a bit of moonlighting and he's gone into part- nership with Pierre Condou of L'Hip- pocampe in Frith Street.
The result, the new Bistrot Bruno on L'Hippocampe's site, is good enough to pull in punters whose desirability to, the restaurateur has given them the confidence to demand more, in quality and quantity, than before, but so markedly different, in scope and ambition and ambience, from the Inn on the Park that Loubet could never be accused of trying to poach its cus- tomers.
As those who used to eat at L'Hip- pocampe know, the room is small and the chairs uncomfortable. These days the joint jumps, and the noise can drown all but the most raucous of conversations. Loubet's menu is up to it. He has always been some- thing of a foie gras and cabbage kind of man: keen to produce food with the direct- ness and robustness of the cuisine du terroir but with the luxurious ingredients and deli- cate execution of formal French cooking. Here, he's been able to indulge more his country tastes, summoning up modish and engagingly idiosyncratic versions of la bonne chaire du grand sud'ouest — onion
soup and salt cod, confit of duck, ox cheeks, smoked trout and cab- bage.
Although he's not in the kitchen here all the time (in charge and on site is Desmond Yare, who worked with Loubet during his stint at the Quat' Saisons), the food bears his stamp: exuberant, elegant, uncompro- mising stuff. Combinations which sound
alarming taste reassuring. Parma ham comes with aubergines, the ham, cut thick (though I think this was not by design but due to a new slicing machine), lying on the plate in robust, almost crimson slices with a wedge of marinated aubergines. This cake of coriander and mint-soused aubergines, so deep and rich, sets off perfectly the fra- grant sweet-and-saltiness of the ham. There is one problem: the aubergines are far too cold. Nothing can ruin food more easily than the wrong temperature. I imag- ine that because of the size of the kitchen too much has to be kept in the fridge. This has to be altered.
Ravioli stuffed with sardines and covered with salsa verde is also a starter, but it's vir- tually impossible to finish it and tackle a main course. The astringent, uncooked sauce of capers, gherkins and shallots, gives an appetite-sprucing edge to the perhaps too dense pasta envelopes, stuffed with laboriously deboned sardines, crushed with scallops to a moussey paste. But if it's a choice between a starter or main course, it's the latter you must have.
Ox cheeks, braised to beetroot-sweet- ness, with macaroni just laced with melted Emmental, is the dish I would return for. Confit of duck, with crisp discs of potato, fried in duck fat and bacon and pressed, like a galette, with a smoky cepe sauce, is an exercise in rigorously contained volup- tuousness.
Puddings recalled the temperature prob- lem. The stewed apple and the poached winter fruits startled by turning out to be ice-cold. The former was advertised as coming with mascarpone ice-cream, the lat- ter with liquorice ice-cream, and I had rea- sonably expected the idea to be the contrast of warm fruits with gently deli- quescing ice. On the other hand, the choco- late tart was unexpectedly hot, or warmish.
With a couple of bottles of water and a decent, just, but unmemorable Spanish red, dinner came to around £30 a head. This, though, was after ordering three courses each, something I wouldn't advise anyone else to do. You can go confidently expect- ing to eat a couple of courses and drink a glass or two of wine for about £22.
Bistrot Bruno, 63 Frith Street, London If1; teL 071-734 4545
Nigella Lawson
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