RESTAURANT AS THEATRE '•AaS% GWYNETH Paltrow was the first to
admit it — Cool Britannia is as dated as a pair of last year's trainers. On a recent visit to London, she hated the wilting polenta and platform heels. Why could no one make a Yorkshire pudding any more? Even Newsweek, in its recent survey of modern Britain, concentrated on cords, tea with milk, the Daily Telegraph and roast beef. Ben and Jerry's, who originally coined the term Cool Britannia for a brand of ice cream, have dropped it from their range. Consumers, they say, have lost the taste for the product.
Tony Blair can ditch the label now it has run its course. But how will the hundreds of restaurants that opened under the happen- ing new Labour government fare in this changing cultural and culinary climate? Chefs can't suddenly start making shep- herd's pie in their wood-fired ovens. Some, like Terence Conran, will ride this cultural backwash as smoothly as they exploited the high tide of hip. His latest establishment, Sartoria, based in Savile Row, is decorated with ye olde English tailoring, with measur- ing tape for ashtrays and buttons for can- dleholders.
But what of restaurants like Momo and Moro, which brought Cool Africana to Bri- tannia? Will they become modern classics like the Ivy and the River Café, or fizzle out in the puddle of hype? My most seri- ously foodie friend volunteered to assess their staying power. Hattie Ellis is the kind of professional who has eaten a placenta cake, created raspberry jelly breasts for a stag night and consults Tudor cookbooks for handy hints. While we lived on Mars Bars, peanuts and alcohol at university, Hattie would rustle up banana and Mal- teser soufflé after the pub. She is about to publish Mood Food, a recipe book.
My job was to check for Moroccan authenticity, having spent several holidays eating tripe and couscous for breakfast with Berbers in the High Atlas mountains, and pastillas for dinner in the tiled splendour of the Palais Jamai in Fez. I tried Momo first. It took ten minutes of pressing various but- tons before I was allowed to speak to reser- vations. Then I had to hand over my credit card details in order to engage in further conversation. They had one table left in a week's time, at 7.30 p.m., but our seats would have to be vacated by 9.15 p.m. When was the first table available at 8.30 p.m? 'We never do 8.30 p.m., only 9.30 p.m.,' came the reply. Grudgingly I booked for the later time, and was told I would be charged £24 if I didn't turn up. Two days before our dinner I received three menac- ing messages demanding I ring to recon- firm.
The little alleyway off Regent Street could, at a pinch, have been mistaken for a seedy corner of the Marrakech souk, except for the white stretch limousines. The lava- tories were more disgusting than anything Morocco has to offer, with slippery, muddy floors and broken tiles, and the tables were so close together that you couldn't fit a sheet of filo pastry between them. There was latticework round the windows, and wailing music on the sound system. But there 'Africa' ended and Europe began with a vengeance. The entrance was guard- ed by two bouncers chatting up some girls in leopard-print bras and plaits. They would have been out on their tummy but- tons in Muslim Morocco. Here their pierced navels gave them instant access to the exclusive club downstairs. Inside, the place was packed with large gaggles of girls wearing see-through nighties over their G- strings and kirby-grips with butterflies in their hair.
A few olives were swimming manfully in some oil in the centre of our table, and when I opened my menu bits of squashed diced carrot fell out. I was dreading the food. Tagines at their best are more deli- cious than any shepherd's pie. But Moroc- co is also the home of the pastilla, a revolt- ing concoction of stringy pigeon, pastry and sugar. Hattie's first course was pastry filled with cheese, mint and potato. The mint lift- ed the beigeness of the dish, and she pro- nounced it delicious. My crushed red pep- pers, coriander and garlic was equally suc- cessful, but by this time the music, which the waiter called chaabi and insisted was authentic Algerian, had been turned up so loud that we had resorted to passing notes across the table and gulping our Ksar wine from Celliers de Meknes, a poor attempt to imitate a full-bodied European red.
Meat with fruit is a suitably old-fash- ioned English idea which, with the excep- tion of gammon and pineapple, works per- fectly. So I chose a lamb tagine with prunes and almonds. Hattie had duck with apple, almonds and rosewater. Both arrived steaming, with the meat falling off the bone. As I delved around the pot, I'd almost reconciled myself to another visit. Then the lights dimmed, and the music went up ten decibels. I braced myself for a rendition of 'Happy Birthday', but then the staff started doing the conga. Our black T-shirted waiter tried to get us to join in, clapping his hands together manically in front of the table and snake-dancing. I sud- denly recognised Momo for what it is — an upmarket package holiday destination. The stretch limos should have been tour buses. We fled before we were made to start telling jokes.
Moro had a table free the next night at 8.30 p.m. Outside it was pouring with anti- quated British rain, which made the monochrome inside seem chilly and cold until we started on the sherries. The tables and bars are hard and angular too, and the service is efficient rather than unctuous. But Moro is more Moorish in every sense of the word. It is Spanish-Arabic rather than Moroccan. The bread is deliciously squidgy sourdough, straight from the oven, rather than walnut/olive/sundried-tomato run-of-the-mill. The ingredients, in cre- ations such as garlic soup with grapes and rabbit with artichoke, are top-quality. My starter of smoked tuna, broad beans and wild rocket came with a wedge of lemon and a flick of olive oil. The crab brik with cumin and coriander made Momo's deep- fried pastry seem greasy. Only my pudding was a disaster, a rosewater ice cream that tasted of the kind of deodorant you are meant to buy on impulse.
Momo is the authentic Club Moditer- ranee Moroccan experience. But authentic- ity isn't everything and I will do the conga if it is still open in ten years. Moro, on the other hand, could one day rival the River Cafe. The setting isn't as spectacular, but the attention to detail in the cooking and ingredients are the same. The cookbook is coming out next year. Just avoid the ice cream.
Moro: 34/36 Exmouth Market, London ECI; tel: 0171 833 8336. £30 a head for three courses with sherry and wine.
Momo: 25 Heddon Street, London Wl; tel: 0171 434 4040, £35 a head for three courses plus wine.
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