GEOGRAPHY is not my strong point. When, at school, it
was made compulsory up to 0 level for some ludicrous reason, my mother flew to the rescue, writing furiously to the headmaster that `Nigella is far too highly strung for a subject like geography'. I was promptly excused.
This confession notwithstanding, my ignorance is not to blame for the muddling of streets and directions in my last restau- rant column. There is a yet more tedious reason: technology. A few buttons pressed, and my restaurant copy habitually finds its way from my computer screen to The Spec- tator's. Last time, the journey was complet- ed, only en route some punctuation — and with it, meaning — got lost. Let me clear up the confusion now: it is the pizzeria, la Piccola, which stands on the site of what were once the public lavatories outside Latymer Upper and not Sumos, the Japanese restaurant, which is quite a bit further down the road towards Hammer- smith.
Sumos, too, is a far cry from Tatsuso, another Japanese restaurant, but one that stands in stylish contra-distinction to the serviceable, sushi-shack in King Street. At Sumos two can eat for around £20; at Tat- suso you reckon yourself lucky to get out for under a hundred. The point must surely be, is this differential reflected in the food?
I'm always wary of the attempt to ascer- tain whether a restaurant is 'worth the money', not because I think the question irrelevant but because I'm not sure how a satisfactory answer may be arrived at. It's not to do with mark-up, or not that alone, and the many little things which one can't exactly price or evaluate are not of equal importance to all who are paying for them. Of course, with the case of Japanese restaurants the problem is peculiarly opaque, for a lack of individualising flair is `Loved it, hated him.' something of a feature. The freshness of the fish is supremely important and this may indeed vary from place to place, but sushi is sushi is sushi, and no chef of hon- our would try and carve his out so as to dis- tinguish his from all others'. Of course it's not all raw fish, and the light broths, the delicate assemblies and so forth do depend on a subtle hand and, as with all cooking, basic or elaborate, on those in the kitchen having a feeling for it.
Tatsuso has this and more. In the middle of a circle of shops and eateries which betray their ghastliness cheerily with names such as Benjy's Take-Away, the Colony Grill and Ned's Golfing Store, Tatsuso is a temple of quivering exquisiteness. All Japanese restaurants tend to make me feel rather unbecomingly clumsy. This one does it, only more so. I can see why the French like Tatsuso so much — Gault-Millau gave it a stratospheric rating — for the place has just the elaborate elegance and slightly overplayed, strained-at chic for which they have such a pronounced weakness. The food, if food isn't too solid a word for the ethereal confections they ceremoni- ously present, is perfection itself, but it's just such an effort, somehow, getting through it. This of course is where la nou- velle cuisine all began: the sacred art of pre- sentation, the minuscule displays, the art- ful, delicate concoctions are here authenti- cally, impressively demonstrated. One can't help admiring the food, but there should be more to eating than that.
Strips of raw squid coated in a sea-urchin sauce were somehow both intensely sweet and acrid at the same time, and utterly compelling — although one wouldn't want to have eaten them blindfold. Sushi was plump and almost still alive.Tempura was impossibly light; the broths you could will- ingly drown in. I, however, ate most of lunch with a knot in my stomach as I anxiously tried to esti- mate the bill in advance. When it eventual- ly arrived, I was foolishly limp with relief: £106, for the two of us. Worth it it maybe, but any restaurant in which I feel I've got out lightly for £50 a head is most definitely not the place for me.
Tatsuso: 32 Broadgate Circle, London EC2; tel: 071-638 5863.
Nigella Lawson
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