AS I WALKED down Walton Street which I had not

done for a few years — I thought of dropping in at a favourite old restaurant, La Popote, to see whether it

had changed at all. Sadly, it is not there any more: all those noisy, gay young waiters wearing striped aprons and tight trousers have presumably flounced off to other local brasseries.

But not, I would guess, to the French restaurant in Draycott Avenue, at the far end of Walton Street, where I had booked a table for lunch. Le Suquet, which cannot be many years younger than La Popote, has rather characterless waiters of the Gallic shoulder-shrugging type. The service is effi- cient without being enthusiastic, the wel- come muted, and no one rushes to take your coat.

I was reminded of this restaurant when reading of the recent travels of the Conser- vative MP for Leicester North-West, David Ashby, who, in order to save his holiday money, shared a bed with a male doctor friend. Understandably, however, he splashed out on meals: 'I had the most deli- cious dish of mixed seafood, overflowing with oysters and prawns, as only they can do it in northern France.' Most of Le Suquet's shellfish comes from northern

France, and the rustique/nautique atmo-

sphere of the place is quite authentic. Fish prints cover the roughly plastered walls and in the upstairs bar, Le Commodore, there are photographs of Brigitte Bardot in her better days. It is one of three fish restau- rants in west London owned by Pierre Mar- tin.

Following Mr Ashby's tastes — in food — I persuaded my guest, Glenys Roberts,

to share with me a substantial plateau de fruits de mer. No prawns were to be found on the great bed of seaweed that was placed between us, but plenty of delicious little salty shrimps (crevettes grises), which I recalled eating with Sam White several years ago off the Champs Elysees.

There were two sorts of oyster — claires and natives — which I was obliged to eat

on my own. Glenys told me she had not eaten an oyster since a lunch in the 1960s with Derek Marks (a former editor of the

Daily Express), though whether it was Marks or a bad oyster that had put her off was not entirely clear.

We fell to talking about the crass deci- sion of the editor of the Sunday Times to dispense with her widely acclaimed weekly column. Thinking about Andrew Neil, how- ever, and all those chips on senior editorial shoulders at that newspaper, risked spoil- ing our lunch. The mayonnaise offered with the crab and langoustines was described by Glenys as 'rather floury', though I tried to assure her that this was the classic combi- nation of olive oil, vinegar and egg yolks. I rather fear she may have been having too much synthetic mayonnaise lately at the Sunday Times.

The rest of the plateau consisted of moules, palourdes (clams) and bigomeaux (very tasty winkles which we extracted with pearl-headed pins). But I was bitterly dis- appointed that no oursins (sea-urchins) were available (£2.50 each when in season). We went on to turbot with a beurre blanc and daurade Nigoise (sea-bream with a black olive and tomato sauce), proving once again that better fish come out of the Atlantic and the North Sea than from the Mediterranean. The turbot was flaky-fresh and had more flavour than the daurade, which had a hint of cotton-wool in its tex- ture.

Two weeks ago I had some uncompli- mentary things to say about restaurant veg- etables; once again they were disappointing — 'new' potatoes from who knows where in midwinter and florets of broccoli, irritating- ly served on a side-plate. Perhaps we have the makings of a campaign here: to per- suade restaurants at least to have a bit more regard for vegetables — their seasons and the dishes they are accompanying.

For pudding we had mousse au chocolat (which came in a soup bowl — far too much) and passion fruit sorbet (no better than I have had from Tesco). The bill came to £81, including cover charge (which I thought all good restaurants had dropped years ago), service (15 per cent was added on), two glasses of champagne and a good bottle of Muscadet at £11.50. It was cer- tainly a seven-out-of-ten meal, but the ser- vice scored badly to the end. We were left to find our coats on the way out and, because no one was around to give it to me, I forgot about a bag of shopping and left it behind.

Le Suquet, 104 Draycott Avenue, London SW3; tel 071-581 1785.

Simon Courtau Id