Initial impressions of the latest re-working of this nicely obscure site, just off Regent Street, are upbeat. Its brick-walled dining room feels as much SoHo NYC as Soho W1.
Thereafter, however, our experience was all downhill. Take the menu selection. What initially looks like a fairly standard brasserie affair, is actually oddly divided into small plates on the one hand, and whacking great meaty dishes – including, we kid you not, a whole piglet for £200 – on the other. Two chaps just looking for a spot of lunch found little they actually wanted to eat. We did, however, have some bread. Two measly slices of sourdough? That’ll be £3. The Soho clip joint lives.
The menu is largely devoid of nods to provenance, even for something as multi-various as ‘Oysters’. Type? Size? Nationality? This lack of basic description speaks volumes. For starters, we eventually opted for a dressed crab, which was good, and a cake of the same crustacean, which was flaccid and unappealing.
And then we waited, and waited. And after we’d waited some more, we were rewarded by a ‘seared beef salad’ – two little slices of beef on an unappetising pile of under-dressed rocket, and some Roquefort – and a goat’s cheese salad that fell similarly flat.
By now desperate to escape – but conscious always of our responsibilities to readers – we tried to order pudding. No way. This was the first brasserie we’ve ever visited with no puds: all ‘off’ (except ice cream). So we reluctantly ordered cheese: a generous but immature and ill-assorted plate, naffly complemented by a few cream and savoury crackers.
A modest, mainly cold lunch for two – which had taken two hours – came to £70, including a glass of wine apiece, and a wholly-undeserved 12.5% service charge. We can only say that we begrudged every penny.
