DEBORAH ROSS Do you remember when, the other week,
DEBORAH ROSS Do you remember when, the other week, I went to St Alban, got lost and ended up in the wrong restaurant entirely, where I said, Am I in St Alban?' and was told, 'No, we're Divo, a Ukrainian restaurant. St Alban is over the road'? Well, what I didn't say was that while in Divo I looked about me and thought: 'Hello, hello, hello, what is going on here?', which I bet you thought only comedy policemen ever said to themselves, but haven't I just proved you wrong? I do believe I have. Anyway, I call my old pal Robbo (you remember him — he's the one from 'Leeds', which I still can't place — have you heard of it?) and ask if he'd like to come along. 'What sort of restaurant is it?' he asks, reasonably enough. 'Posh Ukrainian, I think,' I say. 'With, from my brief glimpse of it, swagged curtains like you would not believe. It's like Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen has gone doolally on crack in there.' It sounds appalling,' Robbo says. 'But I'm up for it.' He doesn't get out much, obviously.
So Divo it is then, which is in one of those wonderfully grand, cream St James's buildings although you would not know it from inside. Inside it is velvet-blue curtains that aren't so much swagged, as super-douperswagged. (Trust me, my dears, you have never, ever seen such swagging.) And thence forward it is vast chandeliers, gilded candelabras, swirly carpets, ceramic knick-knacknoos, the occasional starey-eyed doll, a smattering of blue and white pottery and various dining-rooms: one ragrolled (trust me, my dears, you have never seen anything so Eighties), one with birds and flowers painted on the ceiling and one which, as it happens, appears to be hosting a group of rather glamorous young women. There is also a very big flat-screened telly showing picture postcards of the Ukraine, as the local office of a tourist board might do, and which would be a nice touch if only it were. If pressed, I would say it had been funded by the sort of big money which imagines that the Eurovision Song Contest is classy. If unpressed, I might even say much the same thing.
I'm early so I settle at the bar, which would be a modest structure if only it weren't an enormous wooden canopy brightly decorated with a mural detailing Ukrainian folk scenes. The barmen wear red shirts and super-tight black trousers but that's OK, because they have nice, fruity bottoms and I do like a nice, fruity bottom. My barman is Polish and when I ask who the group of glamorous young women are, he says, 'They are from fashion. A leaving party. They are very pretty and I like these girls a lot. But I am not emptyminded. Some are bright, too.' I'm not empty-minded either,' I point out. Needless to say I do not then add, 'And may I just commend you on your nice, fruity bum, my man.'
Robbo arrives and joins me at the bar. We order a vodka each. It is lovely vodka — clean, clear, cold — and probably a double shot, but it isn't until I get the bill that I realise it cost us £9 a go. 'Nine quid a go!' gasps Robbo. 'Nine quid a go!' I gasp. I've since googled the particular vodka — Nemiroff — which Waitrose sells for £12.99 a bottle. How cheeky is that? How capitalist is that? I'll say this — they are certainly making up for lost time. Maybe it's the same with the curtains, now the iron one is gone. 'It's gone! Let's swag like no one has ever swagged before!' I can see that now.
Eventually we are led to our table, which has chairs as lavish as thrones, and are attended by young waitresses dressed in what? What are they wearing? National costume? Fancy dress? The poor things are trussed up in white, low-cut, tie-up bodices overlaid by red aprons. They look like pantomime milkmaids with 'rather provocative chest areas', as Robbo puts it. I think we now know who has the empty mind around here. I ask our waitress (a nice girl from Belarus) if she minds the uniform. 'No. It's OK,' she says, blankly.
She hands us the menus, which are giantsized, and therefore a bad sign. I can't tell you why a giant-sized menu is a bad sign, but it is. An even worse sign is a giant-sized menu bound in leatherette with tassels, although again I couldn't tell you why. Some things in life you just have to accept as fact. The fluff in the tumble-dryer will always be grey no matter the colour of the wash. That's a fact. You will never get something to go back into a box the way it came. That's a fact. Men don't make passes at girls that wear glasses. Actually, not a fact. Whenever I wear my specs, I pull like hell.
But that's by the by. Where were we? Oh, yes. Not really knowing a great deal about Ukrainian cuisine, we lazily select the set seven-course 'gastronomic menu' at £45 a throw along with a bottle of Ukrainian Merlot at £19.99. Then the food comes, sometimes all at once and sometimes not at once, which is an interesting way of doing it, but there you have it. We start with some kind of cold, layered salad of herring, potato and egg which is like everything I've ever eaten at a bar mitzvah, miniaturised and served in a tower, and then receive, almost simultaneously, Aunt Shura's fish roulade'. This is a plate of grey discs of carp, zander and pike, bound in black fishskin. They taste rather as a waterlogged jumper might after some kind of nasty fishy bath. 'Is it just me, or is this revolting?' I ask Robbo. 'It makes even gefilte fish seem nice,' he replies. Next — by which I mean, almost instantly — it's tolodetz', some kind of terrine with stringy bits of meat beneath a wodge of jelly the colour of translucent nicotine. It sounds revolting, looks revolting, by golly, is outstandingly revolting and if it came from Aunt Shura's kitchen too, I wouldn't be in the least surprised. And so it goes on. And on. A borscht that is greasy and flavourless, a clay pot of ravioli that would probably be quite nice, if it's all we'd had, and then pancakes — cherry for Robbo, cheese for me, and pure stodge. At least Robbo is cheered by a visit to the gents. 'They've got ice in the urinals. You pee on it!' he relates excitedly. OK, I admit, that is classy.
Who is this restaurant for? Rich Russians? Maybe, but beyond that, I just can't see it. Peasant cooking is great (or at least can be when Aunt Shura desists) but if you are paying top-notch prices, you want top-notch, precision cooking accompanied by top-notch service, don't you? I speak to Robbo the next day. 'It was all truly terrible, wasn't it?' he says. And that, alas, is a fact too.
Divo, 12 Waterloo Place, London SW]; teL 020 74841355.
Previous page
