CONTEMPLATING my plate of sauerkraut, and a beer served by
a pigtailed waitress with a picture of a guard dog on her lapel, I found myself humming the tune to 'Springtime for Hitler'. It comes from the Mel Brooks film, The Producers, in which two con men deliberately create a disastrous Broadway show so that they can pocket their backers' money. They devise the perfect flop, a humorous musical about Hitler. To their horror, it is a roaring suc- cess.
Perhaps the creators of Schnecke had the same film in mind when they came up with the concept for Soho's latest restaurant: Alsatian and German food served with lashings of Seventies kitsch. Eurovision- style oom-pa-pa music rings around the ground-floor area: a stark, low-lit collection of tables covered in paper tablecloths. The walls are decorated with what looks like a Damien Hirst vegetarian display — whole cabbages sliced through and sealed behind coloured glass.
The downstairs room is dominated by a painting made of steak-knife handles and deer faeces. The ladies' loo is decorated with pink gas masks while the gents has a bright green rifle. Some walls are covered in plastic salmon, others in German slo- gans. The staff uniform is that of a military orderly. Brightly coloured plastic Nazi hel- mets contain badges of the restaurant's mascot: an Alsatian dog. All that is missing is a sign saying, 'Do mention the war'.
It is a little like wandering into someone else's in-joke, but these people should know what they are doing. Schnecke is the inven- tion of Denis Blais and Andre Plisnier, the eccentric duo who brought Belgian cuisine to London in 1992 and set up Belgo. Their mussels-and-chips theme was such a hit that they sold out last year for £10 million and, having done Belgium, Blais (a Canadian) and Plisnier (a Belgian) now want to do it again with Alsace and Germany.
The difference, of course, is that London- ers were eating mussels long before Belgo came along. They may be less familiar with the three staples at Schnecke — snails, sauerkraut and tartes flambees. We started, as everyone starts, with a beer. The moment you arrive, the waiters appear with trays of German beer in thin Kolsch glasses and continue to bring you fresh ones until you tell them to stop. There is only one choice of beer, Fruh, a tasty, aley lager from Cologne which emerges from taps built into a urinal by the door. Krazy, ja?
The staff, an attentive multinational bunch, go to great lengths to explain that the food is for sharing and should be ordered as you go along. We began with a tarte flambee: a thin dough base covered in fromage frais, creme fraiche, chopped onion, sauerkraut and the odd extra like mushrooms or diced bacon. The size of a large pizza, it came on a chopping-board straight from the oven to be sliced at the table by a waiter, and it was good. There was not too much gunk on the top while the slender base held firm; a bonus as the tartes are served without cutlery. Imagine an onion pizza without tomatoes and you start to get the idea.
Richenda and I had made fairly respectable progress with our tarte when the snails arrived. Since `schnecke' is Ger- man for snail, we assumed that this would be the restaurant's trump card. At £6.50 a dozen they were not expensive but, in the event, they were disappointing. The menu points out that the garlic butter is mixed with Riesling 'in the traditional Alsace way', but the result was a buttery sauce with insufficient garlic and not much Riesling. Since snails taste of nothing anyway, a snail in a bland sauce is the tastebuds' equivalent of a discussion about interest rates.
After a pause and some red wine — an honest £14.50 Pays d'Oc — we decided to summon the menu again. Richenda wanted a mixed salad and was pleased to be given the authentic Continental sort, separate piles of beautifully dressed carrots, celeriac, red cabbage and tomatoes with the lettuce kept to a minimum.
Wanting to complete the Schnecke trilogy, I ordered the sauerkraut. It is not something I would normally order unless stuck on an Alp and it must rank as one of the world's least attractive national dishes, particularly if it comes sloshing around in a pool of cab- bage water. This, though, was excellent. The pickled cabbage was not too bitter — the ubiquitous Riesling marinade had done its job in this case — and the ham came apart in tender, succulent chunks. Somewhat reluc- tantly, Richenda lent me a hand and found herself pleasantly surprised. 'I feel as if I've just come in from skiing,' she declared.
Schnecke has just three choices of pud- ding: tarte Alsacienne, ice cream or both. We took the first option and were given a decent slab which owed more to the Ger- manic than French tradition with plenty of cinnamon and almonds. Despite all that had gone before, we ate the lot with a plum and a raspberry eau de vie at £3 a glass.
I have no idea how Schnecke will fare in the London food jungle. The owners hope to build up a local following among Soho's media crowd and want people to drop in for a beer as well as the full Alsace pig-out. 'Denis Blais said, "Let's not get the archi- tects in. Let's have fun,"' explained manag- er Stephen Gersowsky. Denis Blais has cer- tainly had fun and, in the process, produced something different. Though it has been open for only a few days, the restaurant is going down well with expat Germans who have no problem with Blais's sense of humour, and Europhiles will be pleased that all the menu prices are listed first in euros and then in pounds.
Whether the forces of political correct- ness get the joke remains to be seen. But we will soon find out. A second Schnecke is about to open in Islington.
Schnecke, 58-59 Poland Street, London W1V 3DF; 0171 287 6666. Open noon to midnight, Monday to Saturday, and noon to 1 Opm Sunday. Dinner for two, including beer, from £35.
Robert Hardman is a columnist and corre- spondent for the Daily Telegraph.
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