Telephone: 020 7010 8600
Address: West Street, 13-15 West Street, London WC2
Dinner for two, including wine and service, £90. (Brasserie £50).
A few years ago a fashion designer, who had become moderately famous by appearing regularly on the BBC's risible Clothes Show , telephoned Kensington Place restaurant in west London, announced himself by name and said he was shortly to arrive with three friends. No, he replied when asked, he did not have a booking. Well, it was a Saturday night and Kensington Place was then, as it is now, an exceptionally popular restaurant, a favoured spot for everybody from Princess Diana to Janet Street-Porter and most everyone else in between. Regretfully, the matre d' informed the caller that they had no room. The moderately famous fashion designer was outraged. 'Don't you keep back any tables for celebrities?' he said.
'Why?' said the maître d'. 'Who are you bringing with you?'
You have to love a restaurant that does something like that. However, the real reason Kensington Place - or KP, as its regulars call it - is adored by so many is simply that it's very good. The chef, Rowley Leigh, knows how to make the familiar seem both comforting and exotic at the same time. The management knows what service means and how to make a room buzz. They are all very good at the subtle business of restaurants.
Which makes a new opening from that team the equivalent of a Steven Spielberg movie premiere. It's big news, or as big as news ever gets in the bizarrely self-serving world of restaurants. The event is given an added frisson by the fact that the new place is a mere Perrier bottle's throw from that other celeb hang-out, The Ivy, on West Street, off London's St Martin's Lane. However much both sides will try to deny it, two of the biggest players in town are now going head to head.
I should say that my first impressions of the newcomer were not good because, yet again, the designer has gone for the old airport waiting-room look: cold, hard surfaces, brown veneer or brown leather. You know the sort of thing by now. The worst part is the basement bar which, as my wife put it, 'looks like the foyer of an Odeon cinema that's trying to go upmarket'. But, all that said, we were swiftly converted. We both ordered vodka gimlets (a poncey American name for a vodka and lime) and they were the best either of us have drunk outside the US. Then Pat announced she was starving. Did they do any snacks? There was a few minutes' wait, during which we began to rap our fingers on the bar, irritably. Suddenly the barman burst out of the kitchen with a bowl of crisps. 'Sorry about that,' he said, 'But they do like to make them fresh.' And, indeed, they were still warm. We were putty, I tell you. We were putty.
West Street is, as so many new places seem to be these days, more of a complex than a restaurant. Above the basement bar is a ground level no-bookings brasserie and above that is the restaurant. On its first Saturday night it was pretty full with happy chatter and clink. The menu is, I suppose, something you might call modern European bistro, or some such cobblers. Certainly it has the reassuring Rowley Leigh thumbprint on it, which is to say, it reads nicely.
There were four of us that night so we were able to give it a proper road test. Our verdict: ooh, very good indeed, thank you for asking. A green lentil salad with eggs, olives, peppers, smoked anchovies and unadvertised caper berries the size of plums was a sublime combination of stunning ingredients. My spaghettini with crab, garlic and chilli was rich and unctuous without being overwhelming. (They serve a similar same dish at The Ivy down the road; sorry chaps, but this one is better.) King scallops with squid ink tasted richly of the sea. The most ordinary dish was a plate of great salami, radishes and crisp Italian bread.
The main courses went down equally well. My grilled partridge with pine kernels and rosemary had lovely, crisp salty skin. Dover sole grilled with marjoram and lemon was as fresh as they come, ditto grilled sardines and grilled swordfish. (The only criticism: too much olive oil on the swordfish.) There's a wide selection of side dishes and all of them are worth trying, particularly the sweet pumpkin with oranges and almonds and the crisp green beans with garlic. There is no great secret to this menu and there were no great theatricals coming out of the kitchen. It was just simple food lifted above the ordinary by expert work at the stove.
As to the service, it is perfect: warm and charming without being obtrusive. (They were particularly skilled at dealing with a rowdy table next to us, the occupants of which were either suffering from Adult Attention Deficit Disorder or were simply off their tits. One of them even left a shoe behind, which must take some doing.) With a bottle of Argentinean Malbec - we ordered one at £28.50 but they bought us one that was £10 cheaper and nobody noticed - the bill came to about £45 a head. It's not cheap but, frankly, at this level, it's not bad at all. By London standards it feels like value for money. Would I come back, though? I'm really not sure. I genuinely do hate this kind of décor. For all of West Street's good points I find the dining room soulless and disheartening, and those are not good qualities in a restaurant.
That said, the brasserie downstairs, where it would be easy to get out for £20 a head, looks like a great proposition for lunch. What's more, with its democratic no-bookings policy, even Mr Fashion Designer would be able to get a table.
Contact Jay Rayner on jay.rayner@observer.co.uk.
