AT LAST, I've made it. There was a dan- ger,
of course, that in waiting for so long to get to L'Odeon, in giving it such a build-up, in making it, for the past couple of months, the focal point of all intended future culi- nary journeys, when I came to it I — or you — would be disappointed. And I am afraid there is an element of that. It's a difficult one: Bruno Loubet is talented, fabulously talented, that's not in question; but what I wonder is whether one of these new mega- restaurants (not quite on Mezzo's scale, but nevertheless seating some 300 a night) is really the best showcase, the best home, for him.
Still, if you're going to have to do things big, L'Odeon is probably the way to do it. The building used to be a British Airways office and there is something of the ghost of an airport terminal about it: the floor seems to rise slightly as you walk across it (I felt somehow I ought to have a luggage trolley to wheel up it as I went) and forms a corridor along the long, thin dining-room, which is semi-partitioned into separate areas, rather like boarding gates. This makes it sound ugly, but that it isn't. It's beautifully lit and, difficult for a room this size, has a rather comfortable, unstrident elegance about it. One of the great advan- tages of the partitions and screens is that the noise is muted. All successful restau- rants need a buzz, but the danger with hav- ing 200 or so people eating in one room is that the buzz becomes a roar, and it's just all too exhausting and uncomfortable.
Front of house is managed by Loubet's partner, Pierre Condou, and Marian Scrut- ton, whom I'd last encountered at Fulham Road, and this is another huge advantage: service is excellent, everyone seems to know what should be done and makes sure it gets done; you're never left waiting, but neither are you over-solicitously hounded. Both Scrutton and Condou have only ever worked in small joints, and they manage to run this long-limbed monster of a place as If it were just another of them. One never gets the sense, as one easily can in places of this scale, that one is eating in a catering organisation rather than a restaurant.
Naturally, though, some sense of a factory conveyer-belt place has to exist and this is where the food can suffer. However good it can be, it is impossible to make sure that's how good it's always going to be. I had a very disappointing lunch here, though dinner was much better. I started with a celery-scented consommé en gel& with lobster and guacamole which was out of this world: aromatic, vigorous but still delicate. Crab tortellini in curry oil and an appley sauce, was, however, what you might call an interesting failure. Chef Loubet uses spices and eastern seasonings in a way that when it works is breathtaking, but when it doesn't can be uncomfortable. Moreover, the tortellini themselves were unexpectedly clumsy, made of pasta that was far too thick.
Main courses are the draw. I had duck with wild cherry sauce, which in the wrong hands (as it almost invariably is) is a hideous confection: here it is superb. It's Hereford duck, which has a good, meaty taste and a texture that is velvety rather than fattily fibrous (it tastes rather like a cross between duck and wild duck), and the sauce is unsweet. The lamb plate comprises some lamb chops of warm succulence, a soft piece of lamb's liver with green pep- percorns and a truly magnificent kebab, in the form of a mound of pressed, ground and spiced lamb with aubergine. And I spied on a nearby table a salt beef pot-au- feu that looked so good, I had to use every bit of restraint I could summon to stop stretching out a fork and nabbing some. And I really want to return, too, for the roast lobster: I am greedily intrigued by the idea of the lime-pickle potato cake that accompanies it.
Next time, though, I think I'll give the puddings a miss. Apart from a glorious mascarpone and basil ice-cream (which came with a rather jammy prune tart), I was rather surprised at how little they worked. A ewe's milk and fennel crème brill& came in a shallow plate so that one got about a centimetre of custard, the fen- nel would have been better had it been infused in the milk and then removed, and the texture itself seemed wrong: strangely soft on top and harder underneath. I tried to convince myself I liked the meringue with passion fruit mousse more than I did. The mousse itself was wonderful — sharp, unsugary — but the meringue had the dusty overcookedness of shop meringues.
Puddings aside, I do think this is as good as a restaurant of this size can be. It's just that that can only be so good, and Loubet can be exceptional. Still, I would come back, and I liked it there. Dinner for two of us, with a couple of glasses of very good house champagne and thick, velvety, pep- pery red wine, came to £88 before tip.
If L'Odeon is the best it gets, Avenue is without doubt the worst. One day, when I've mustered the strength, I'll tell you about it.
L'Ode'on, 65 Regent Street, London Wl; tel: 0171 287 1400.
Nigella Lawson
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