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Monsieur Thompson's
IF THE inventors of Scruples were to devise a `moral dilemma' peculiar to res- taurant critics it might run like this: `You are asked to write a column about res- taurants in your area. One of them is your particular favourite. Do you leave it out in order to preserve it for yourself and your friends or do you decide to let everyone in on it?'
This restaurant critic would decidedly opt for the former, I'm afraid, but let me invite you instead to the restaurant oppo- site. In any qualitative sense, Monsieur Thompson's (29 Kensington Park Road, W11, 727 9957) is not, you can be assured, `second-best', so neither reader nor owner should feel aggrieved. It is true that in the past I have had doubts. This was because, although when it opened it aimed, success- fully, at being very much a restaurant du quartier, in recent years prices and preten- sions rose to unacceptable levels. But with the arrival of a new chef, the resonantly named Remy Dieu, and introduction of a £13.50 set-dinner, all can be forgiven. Or nearly all — service can still be lamentable.
Once you've battled your way, Morecambe-like, through an almost im- penetrable heavy velvet curtain, you find yourself in an interior that could only belong to a French restaurant. A maroon banquette runs along one side, nestling under maroon-edged curtains, the rest of this corner room is crammed with small wooden tables with a tendency to wobble, covered in neatly-patterned pastel table- cloths. Hessian walls are hung with land- scapes and brass light fittings of the Gypsy Rose Lee variety. There is another floor downstairs, and the whole is a mixture of quasi-rustic charm and bourgeois decor- ativeness.
Even in its most expensive days, Mon- sieur Thompson's has always had an excep- tionally good, reasonably priced set lunch. £10.50 is the price of three courses, though for £2.90 a starter, £6.90 for a main course and £2.50 for pudding, you can choose freely from an elegant and sensible menu.
You could start with a snail and mushroom casserole, a `petite salade Thompsons' — leaf salad with slivers of cold roast beef, quail's eggs, bacon and croutons — or smoked salmon with marin- ated cucumber. Patron Dominique Rocher (the restaurant is named after his cat) worried that his last chef, Aram Atana- syan, had become 'too avant-garde' and M. Dieu's brief has been, baldly speaking, to be more respectful of classical French cuisine; what M. Rocher calls `putting the cream back in to the sauces'. So, on the list of main courses you'll find chicken breast in a summer-smelling basil sauce, roast pork a la moutarde de meaux, steamed cod au beurre blanc. Naturally, the menu varies, but there'll always be something reassuringly unadventurous on it. Finish with the lie flottante or homemade ice cream, coffee and petit fours and you'll look at North Kensington in a new light.
Those of us who have the misfortune to work too far away to lunch here will have to make do with dinner. And it's not a bad sort of making-do. The set menu (three courses for £13.50) offers, at the moment, a soupe du jour, green salad in walnut oil dressing, melon or salmon trout mousse with artichokes, followed by an adaption of bouillabaisse, rolled fillet of Dover sole au beurre blanc, steak an pOivre or pigeon breast in a mushroom and sherry vinegar sauce. The two puddings are a lemon mousse or coconut mousse-cake.
Good though all this is, it's not too hard to be tempted away to the a la carte, where you'll find quail's eggs set in aspic, brochet- tes of fish spiked with herbs (£3.50-ish), noisettes of lamb with thyme or duck in a black olive sauce (£9-ish). If you've aban- doned the set menu it seems worthwhile to go for the cheese which, at £3.50 is anyway about the same price as the puddings. Very drinkable house wine is £6.45, deliciously soupy brouilly is £9.95 and sancerre £11.95.
Monsieur Thompson's now opens for lunch and dinner on Sunday, a welcome innovation. The menu is simple and prices are kept in check, though it looks in places as if Miles Kington had been let loose on it. Have a light starter, proceed with 'les roasts' and end with 'les sweets et les puddings' and expect to pay, discounting wine and service, around £13 a head.
Nigella Lawson
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