THERE'S something rather engaging ab- out a chef who cites
Mrs Beeton as, if not muse exactly, then inspiration. As far as most foreigners are concerned, English food, notwithstanding the eminent Victo- rians in the kitchen, means boiled cabbage and overcooked beef. And it has to be said that this remains true to much of our own experience, too. Khaki brussels sprouts and deliquescent shepherd's pie might furnish a public schoolboy's nostalgia, but they don't paint a very inviting picture of British cuisine.
It is strange that when it was not only OK but almost de rigueur to be English, in the Sixties, everybody was buried in wine- dark bistros all over Chelsea learning to relax over boeuf bourgignon and steak chasseur; now, in the Swingeing Eighties, we're rediscovering our culinary roots. Colour supplements and glossy magazines have been falling over themselves to dredge up obscure gems from British re- gional cooking. But prevailing notions and anxieties about health have necessitated some modification and here, a strange marriage indeed, is where nouvelle cuisine comes in.
In nastier moments one might be en- visaging a Walls sausage fanned out on Plate with a lattice-work of chips dotted with a mousse of baked beans. In reality it is quite different, as one visit to Auntie's (126 Cleveland Street, Wl, 387 1548) will prove. Its cutesie names rather than being an unappealing example of itsy-Britsiness, is an inheritance. The restaurant's previous owner (when it was a tea-room) was a local character' known as Auntie; the new ,establishment raise a glass to her with their Auntie's tipple', an alarmingly medicinal aPdritif of cointreau, cassis and home- grown red plonk. Shaun Thomson, chef and part owner, late of the Dorchester, where he trained with Anton Mosimann, is insistent that English food's time has come. His view is that we've got the produce, but what we lack is the presentation. This, among other things, Shaun Thomson sees as salvaging English cooking's good name; his £12.50 set menu, though it sounds terribly En- glish, traditional and familiar, is arranged with tidy flair. _ Start with soup of the day; spiced and buttered Scottish shrimps; smoked Finnan haddie (in fact smoked on the premises), flesh as white as turkey breast, with horser- adish; leek and crowdie (cream) tart, meltingly good; Auntie's autumn salad, mixed leaves and marinated cherry toma- toes in a creamy dressing; or 'The Col- onel's' curried egg mayonnaise.
Main dishes, called principal dishes here, include beef and mushroom pie with a wonderfully swelling roof of pastry, Lancashire hotpot, bangers and mash Cumberland sausage (2 frankfurter-sized ones rather than the spiral) with a sharp sauce made of a reduction of cider vinegar and beef stock with shallots and Granny Smiths. This I thought rather less than successful: the sausage had less flavour than it should have, its texture was too fine, too smooth and the sauce altogether too spiky. Better try the Catch of the Day — fish baked en papillotte — when I went, cod brushed with horseradish and parcel- led up, to open with a whoosh on your plate, with shallots and dill. Best of all, however, was the Hindelwakes, the old name for a dish of chicken stuffed with prunes, herbs and spices served on feast days, but which is here poached chicken, yielding and tender, in a white wine sauce with basil, chervil and chives. And then there is sirloin steak with 'cab shelter sauce' — an up-market HP, made with shallots, peppers and mushroom ketchup reduced to a pulp, with vinegar added, reduced again and left to mature for two months.
The bread-and-butter pudding is a bit of a disappointment coming from a disciple of Mosimann, king of the born-again bread- and-butter pudding, but Nanny Campbell's basic lemon fluff was perfect — though I've yet to find a nanny who serves up mousse bathing in a fruit coulis swimming with cream hearts. Trifle comes in a huge glass goblet and good, honest cheeses come in good, honest slices.
Don't do what I did and brave the English Red (New Hall, Purleigh £8.50) or, indeed, the house Fitou, but try one of their more familiar, respectable wines from a short but structured list.
The service is eager and the small, green and dark wood interior relaxing. Shaun Thomson's attempt to 'up the style' of English food has largely paid off.
• Nigella Lawson
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