ALTHOUGH it has improved in recent years, the general standard
of restaurants in Britain is still appalling. The reasons for this are widely misunderstood, though quite straightforward. Firstly, our culinary tradi- tion died with the first world war. (There isn't even an English word which conveys the full meaning of 'cuisine'.) Without a ser- vant class in a still pre-restaurant era, those who could afford to eat well did not know how to cook, and those who knew how could not afford it. Secondly, the British are not prepared to pay for proper restaurant cooking other than on special occasions. Continental restaurant-goers (i.e. every- body) habitually spend more money in a less grudging and expectation-loaded man- ner than we do. Hence their minimum stan- dards are pitched at a civilised level and they have good, serious, but unfussy eating establishments at every turn.
Whereas in Britain, places like Odette's exist only in wealthy metropolitan ghettos such as Primrose Hill. As most locals have senior jobs in the BBC, they have little understanding and no appreciation of money, with which commodity they are overburdened in both their professional and private lives. Thus they will spend £60 per head on an impromptu dinner with the same sense of modest indulgence that the rest of Britain orders take-away Chinese. We should be grateful for small mercies. In many other rich parts of London where money is privately earned and thus overvalued against food according to the British custom — there are no decent neighbourhood restaurants at all.
Odette's has been owned by Simone Green for more than 20 years. As chefs come and go, the quality of the cooking ebbs and flows, but minimum standards are maintained. Set in a pretty parade of mid- Victorian shops and cafés, the darker, more formal mirror-room at the front is intimate, elegant and romantic, while the light and airy conservatory behind is slightly louder and more relaxed.
The positive aspect of having lost our ver- nacular tradition is that the few genuinely bourgeois restaurants we do have are mod- erately experimental. My starter of grilled sardines with 'Middle-Eastern dips' was visually stunning, a brilliant combination of strong, rustic colours and textures. The sar- dines were also fine to eat, as was the home- made unleavened bread. I didn't mind that it was very slightly undercooked, because one felt the chef was stretching himself, which is refreshing. Similarly with the dips: on one level they were quite clumsy attempts at very simple dishes. But it is exciting and reward- ing to eat food which gives a sense that someone is grappling with the concepts, gen- uinely trying to do something different, striv- ing to improve. We're all familiar with this at the super-chef end of the spectrum — Nico's risotto, Marco's foie gras, even Simon Hopkinson's chicken — but if we value it in the fancy-schmancy places, I think it behoves us to sponsor it at the grassroots. All three dips had a just-too-bitter aftertaste which my wife (who has the palatal equiva- lent of perfect pitch) and I eventually ascribed to a tahina paste which was either too plentiful or too old. The best was a bean dip similar to houmus or ful medames, but I
NO FAMILY TREES NO DUSTY BOTTLES JUST FRUIT
EXCLUSIVE WINES AVAILABLE EVERYWHERE think made with haricot beans, which are more delicate than either chickpeas or brown beans. A lemony baba ganoush (creamed aubergine) was nicely textured but overly tahinaed; taramasalata was too smoky by half.
Mrs Simon began with a warm salad of asparagus with baby leeks and soft-boiled egg. The asparagus was perfectly pleasant, she said, but, to her amazement, she could not find a single leek, of whatever seniority, on her plate. And her soft-boiled egg was stone-cold, which did not impress her either.
With roast rump of lamb served on chevre cream and a tomato tart, she fared better. She thought it a well-balanced com- position, her only quibble being with the seasoning: tomatoes too frugally and green beans too liberally salted.
My roast Gressingham duck was a gener- ous portion of breast. The skin was crisp, the meat a fraction short of perfectly pink. Slightly crunchy, properly bitter fronds of chicory — that vegetable so beloved of the Belgians and so neglected over here combined well with an acidic sauce to cut through the fat.
As a rule, I am amused rather than irritat- ed by that malapropistic language, Menu- ese. But I do not understand why so many chefs insist on using terms which they must know are misleading. My chocolate mousse was not what anybody understands by a mousse; it was what most people would call a sponge. Mousses, which are not made with flour, are meant to be moist and moussy. Sponges (farinaceous to their cores) are more bready, more firmly textured, yet more airy. They are spongy. This mousse was a perfectly pleasant sponge, but I don't really like sponges; I fancied a mousse. So the chef, having deliberately led me to choose the wrong dish, needlessly disappointed a customer with a perfectly good product. `Black figs with cardamom orange butter and crème fraiche' held no such interpreta- tive terrors. Mrs S. pronounced it to be a wonderful pudding, notable for its marmal- ady texture and the subtlety of its flavoured butter.
Glasses of the house champagne and a bin-end bottle of a fruity Californian red (£20) were good value. The Odette's list is sourced almost exclusively from mY favourite wine merchant, Bibendum, which makes it one of the best places in London to drink New World wines. If you want somewhere exceptional for that special occasion, I would have to say that you can get better cooking for !he. money elsewhere. But if you should find yourself in the neighbourhood, yearning for a grown-up meal in smart but unpreten- tious surroundings, remember you're in one of the very few places in Britain where the option is available.
Odette's, 130 Regent's Park Road, London NW1; tel.. 0171 586 5486. £100 for a three- course dinner for two including coffee, aperitifs and wine.
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