I HAVE being going off Gary Rhodes. All that swaggering
cheeky chappism, that one- of-the-boys posturing is beginning to pall. In the beginning he appeared rather as the Nigel Kennedy of the kitchen, only more like- able. Now he irritates more than charms. Not that it is entirely his fault. He has become a television chef, and television requires more of their chefs than that they can cook: they must be personalities. The personality devised for Rhodes is not a pleasant one: all brag and boast and smug self-congratulation.
That says nothing about his standing as a chef, of course. Or rather, it need not have done, except for the particular nature of his self-promoting claims. Reading the book of the television series when it came out last year, I couldn't quite believe how much cred- it he took for a culinary renaissance of which he is certainly a part but not quite the prime mover he seems to suggest. It didn't take Gary Rhodes to remind us that mashed potatoes were good, or that fish cakes were a nifty idea. The Caprice, for salient example, had both on the menu years before Rhodes came into view. That's not to denigrate Rhodes's cooking: I don't deny his talents, but I think it is fair to say that these lie in the category of competence rather than genius.
I may sound grumpy, and perhaps I am, but I want to make clear that I have always enjoyed eating Rhodes's food — although I haven't been to the Greenhouse now for ages — so I looked forward to going to The People's Palace, his new joint in the Festi- val Hall. I wince, though, as I write that, as even to type out such an unbearably naff name gives pain. I don't know why it's called that. I think the idea is that you can eat as little or as much as you like, but even so. There's a lot of PR silliness involved: the restaurant claims that diners may pay in any currency of their choice and that `exchange rates will be updated for both lunch and dinner and print-outs will be dis- played in the restaurant'. A 'club table', too, is planned for the place, at which sin- gle diners may sit to be chummy with other eaters on their own.
After the cringe-making style of the press release, I dreaded what might be in store, but luckily the restaurant itself is not in the same vein. It's a beautiful room, spare, modern and elegant, stretched along one side of the Festival Hall, looking out onto the river and lights, and an agreeably unpretty London. But what you absolutely must do is ask for a window-side table when you book.
The menu, devised by G. Rhodes, execut- ed by Stuart Busby, is familiar: chunky toma- to soup, haddock cake with tartare dressing, shepherd's pie, bread-and-butter pudding and raspberry ripple ice-cream, that kind of thing. The trouble with the restaurantisation of food one used to eat for one's high tea is that once the originality of the idea has worn off, so has much of the point of doing it. A further trouble here is that the cooking is just not special enough: it holds no real joys and a few disappointments.
From the admittedly cheerily priced prix fixe — two courses for £10.50, three courses for £13.50 — the starter of chicken liver par- fait was just like any deli-bought slab of moussy-smooth pâté and quite as bland, the cod was itself cooked perfectly, but the mashed potatoes were horrifically oversalted and as caky as school mash, and the raspber- ry ripple ice-cream was not quite the ironi- cally upmarket version of it that was intend- ed. Vanilla ice-cream had simply been drenched in a far too sweet raspberry syrup.
From the a la carte, the crispy chickpea patties on a parsley relish were simply poor man's falafal with tabbouleh: too blah, too feebly flavoured. The kitchen seemed to veer worryingly between overseasoning and underseasoning: food was either weedy or as salty as the Dead Sea. I like salt, and rather an unfashionable lot of it, so if I found the spinach and mashed potato almost emetically saline, it is really saying something. The open peppered beef sand- wich with fried eggs I had for a main course was fabulous, and a pudding of steamed orange marmalade sponge nearly made it. The suety sponge itself was fragrant if not quite as light as it could have been, but the ice-cream that accompanied it was curious- ly dense and powdery. Apart from the oversalting nothing was horrid, just so-whatish. After tip (service Italian and amiable), dinner for the two of us, with a couple of glasses only of house wine, came to £62. If I were at the South Bank I do think I would stop off for a one- course dinner or lunch, but I can't quite see myself, or anyone's, making an expedition especially. Still, the view's good.
The People's Palace, Festival Hall; tel: 0171 928 9999
Nigella Lawson
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