The Bluebird
WHEN the editor asked me to fill in the dog days with two restaurant pieces (of which this is the first) I accepted willingly, saying I could revisit some of my familiar haunts which I might have neglected lately, what with one thing and another: Sweetings and the Gay Hussar for lunch, perhaps Au Bon Accueil for dinner. A look of displea- sure crossed his normally cheerful counte- nance. I might have been proposing to Yasser Arafat a joint expedition to Bloom's Salt Beef Bar. That, he said, was not what he had in mind at all. There was not the slightest point, journalistically, in my going to places I already knew and liked. The whole purpose was to try something new. A hard man, the editor. Petronella Wyatt who, as police reports put it, had been pre- sent throughout the conversation — sug- gested Sir Terence Conran's new empori- um, the Bluebird in the King's Road.
For emporium is what it is. When I arrived shortly before eight, half an hour before I was due to meet My Companion — a figure de rigueur in these articles and hereinafter referred to as `MC' — I remembered I was out of oranges at home. In the forecourt to the restaurant, which used to be a garage, there is a fruit-and-vegetable-selling opera- tion which is, I assume, intended to remind the customer or passer-by of a market in Provence. I purchased six small oranges from Uruguay for £1.20. On the left is a café-bar. Everywhere else on the ground floor seems to be a Conran supermarket. There is anoth- er fruit-and-vegetable operation in the body of the kirk, the restaurant on the first floor upstairs.
It is blue and white, with white metal beams, quite airy, not as hot as I had feared on such a hot day, very noisy. People seem to like noise. It assures them that they are still alive, I suppose. There is also a rather good pianist. As I was deliberately early to forestall any nonsense about bookings, I asked for a dry martini. This was deliberate likewise: it is a good test drink. I had taken the precaution of filling the tank with plen- ty of mineral water because it was such a hot day. The martini was fine, though itself slightly on the watery side: an inevitable consequence in very warm weather of rapidly melting ice in jug or shaker, unless complicated preliminary precautions are taken.
`Do you have an account at the bar, sir?' the young man who brought it asked, civilly but mysteriously. 'No, I'm having dinner here,' I replied. 'Name of Watkins. I've booked.' In that case, sir,' the youth said, `could I please have your credit card?' I handed over one of my extensive collection saying, 'Can I please have it back?' You get it back at the end of the meal, sir,' the young man explained firmly. This seemed to me distinctly odd, not to say rum. Did it, I won- dered, accord with what George Carman QC in the Jonathan Aitken case called the best commercial practice? My credit card had been removed on only one previous occasion: at the Crillon Hotel in Paris when MC (the same one, incidentally) and I had missed the last train to Boulogne and turned up at the hotel at 11 without any luggage. This time she ordered roast aubergine followed by sea bass, and I half a lobster mayonnaise followed by a fishcake. I ordered a bottle of 1995 Chablis and asked for it to be brought at once, which it was. It was perfectly nice but cost £21.50. I can get an exact equivalent from the Wine Society for £8.25. This is a mark-up by Sir Terence of 160 per cent, which does seem to me on the steep side, I must say. At this point the `Surprise!' youth returned my credit card without fur- ther explanation, even though we had not started dinner, let alone finished it.
We shared our first course. We should probably have anyway, but the half lobster came virtually intact with pincers and a probing device which looked as if they had escaped from a museum of old surgical instruments. MC likes and is good at fid- dling around, whereas I neither care for nor am adept at the activity. Nothing wrong with the lobster or mayonnaise, but the aubergine was more interesting. It came in a pastry crust unmentioned by the menu and with pesto and chopped-up fancy mushrooms.
MC said her sea bass was first-class. It came with lentils and creme fraiche on top and with a bed of deliberately semi-mashed new potatoes and flat parsley underneath. My fishcake was, I fear, less successful. It was composed simply of fresh salmon and mashed potato, had, I think, been recently made, and was consequently largely taste- less. Fishcakes have to be left to settle for a time. Contrary to the modern fetish for freshness originating in Californian lunatics, they taste better if they are made the day before and left in the fridge overnight. Ideally they should contain smoked haddock, alone or in combination. They must be generously seasoned. In the absence of the strong flavour provided by smoked haddock (or a smaller quantity of kipper), then anchovy essence, tabasco or both come in useful. They sometimes need a binding agent. They cannot just be flung together hoping for the best, as Sir Terence seems to do. Above all, they need an accompanying sauce: parsley sauce, unless parsley has been used in the mixture, or fresh tomato sauce, or even Heinz tomato ketchup. My insipid fishcake was pointless- ly placed on a bed of the inevitable rocket and what seemed to be 57 varieties of assorted green beans, all apparently inno- cent of any dressing.
As I believe in being as precise as possi- ble about what things cost, here is the bill: martini, £5.50; mineral water, £3; Chablis, £21.50; roast aubergine, £5.75; half lobster, £12.75; sea bass, £14; fishcake, £8.75; mango pudding, £4.90; peach pudding, £5.50; dessert wines Capitelli 1994, £5.95, muscat Rives 1995, £4.25; four espresso, £7.25. Total, £99.10, with '12.5 per cent dis- cretionary service charge', £111.49. If I had forgone the dry martini and we had both held back from the dessert wine and the second cup of espresso, the bill with service charge would have been £89.78. MC enjoyed herself more than I did. I would go again if I happened to be in darkest SW3, but I would not embark on a special expe- dition. And I would certainly give Sir Ter- ence's fishcakes a wide berth.
The Bluebird: 350 Kings Road, London SW3; tel: 0171 559 1000.
by Alan Watkins
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