11 [ 1011IIME I IRIBMERBM1 I THINK I might just have had one slice
of ciabatta too many. What is it with every new restaurant in town — and, increasing- ly, out of town — that they have to have the same menu, the identical ingredients? I'll never tire of Italian food in Italy, or in real, rather than rentapolenta, Italian restau- rants over here, but the photofit-menu syn- drome makes one realise the great culinary awakening is a false dawn. We may have turned into marvellous mimics, but we still can't speak the language.
Recently I have been longing for creamy pale beurre &hire to spread on a baguette with a crust that splinters, for poulet a l'estragon and rich things, unfashionably French. Chinon isn't quite that sort of restaurant, but it felt like a move in the right direction. I hadn't eaten there for some time, but a five-year-old memory of having dinner in the old Chinon (a few doors up the road from its current site) still lingered, and that alone, given the amount I've eaten in the interim, seemed to justify a return journey in these pages.
My heart rather sank, though, when I saw the refitted restaurant. From the outside it looked suspiciously Italianified, the now usual jars of neo-Mediterranean this and that gleaming away on what looked like a stainless steel counter. What used in the old place to be cosy and cluttered and hung with rather cheeringly undistinguished oils is now plainish but not stylish. In other words, still undistinguished but without warmth this time. I sat down reluctantly: seeing the chairs I knew I was in for a hard time; I was proved right. And when I saw the top line of the menu I nearly wept: `country bread'. Normally that means the ersatz Italian bread basket. Thank good- ness it didn't here. The bread was sweet and eggy (not very countryish) and it came accompanied by a small dish of concasse tomatoes with garlic and basil, sprightly with the whiff of Provence and quite a clever wheeze for getting away with a £1.80 charge for bread.
The menu has stuck to its guns. I should say it's not a particularly exciting menu to read — the fact that it's scarcely legible doesn't help — but it is a joy to eat, which is at least the right way round. The 'Chinon salad of leaves, cresses and hazelnut oil dressing' was fine and simple, but I baulk at the unnecessary and pompous appellation. We know we are in a restaurant called Chi- non, so let us simply have 'salad'. (And it's not after all as if this, agreeable though it may be, were a culinary one-off.) If they want to go in for the Basil Fotherington- Thomas-like listing of leaves and herbs and whatnot, fine. So-called 'gateau' of fresh crab and leeks was excellent. The sweet meat of the crustacean was quietly offset by leek, snipped as small as a spring onion, and enhanced by little threads of it deep- fried to even greater sweetness and left in a tangle on top.
When the main courses arrived it was impossible not to think we had gone back in time: partridge was dissected and artfully arranged on a plate around a mound of mash-bound lentils and lardons covered by a well-fitting dome of savoy cabbage; duck breast was seared, and the crisp skin slashed into grill-bronzed stripes, and served with a variety of purées of root veg- etables. Both dishes were perfectly execut- ed, gratefully eaten. What matters is not a dish's vintage but that the intensity of flavour is matched by a musical lightness of touch.
It is easy to be seduced into pudding by their assiette of desserts, the whole shebang on one plate: a warm and melting choco- late tart, ice-cream and bavarois, both a musky and voluptuous vanilla, orange and passion-fruit sorbets and a lemon tart with pastry that was sweet and short and crisp with nutty smokiness.
With a bottle of satiny Reserve du Leopold Barton for £21, one glass of Gewiirztraminer and some water, dinner for the two of us came to £80. Now to the bit I wish I didn't have to write, but I must be honest: I wish this restaurant well, but I didn't get the impression this feeling was exactly reciprocated. A tone of whiny glum- ness pervades. I know the restaurant busi- ness is a hard one, but the resentful anxiety emanating from the front of house doesn't do anyone any favours, least of all the chef.
Chinon, 23 Richmond Way, London W14; tel: 071 602 408215968.
Nigella Lawson
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