When I was but 25 years old, I took two dozen of my closest friends to dinner in an establishment plump with fine linen and twinkling chandeliers. I was able to do this not because I was obscenely wealthy, but because the restaurant I chose was Kettners on Romilly Street in London's Soho. Kettners really is all fur coat and no knickers. It has the aspect of the grandest of establishments (a lustre only emphasised by its champagne bar) yet the menu of a pizzeria. I recall that my dinner party, convened because I had won a little money, cost me no more than £250. That's not a small bill, but for two dozen people it's a steal. Kettners has always struck me as representing a very special brand of democracy.
Once upon a time, of course, it was as grand as it looked. It was opened in 1867 by Auguste Kettner, chef to Napoleon III, and it is said that both Oscar Wilde and Edward VII ate here. It went through various incarnations until, in 1980, it was purchased by Peter Boizot, founder of the Pizza Express chain, who installed a variant on the pizza-parlour menu. After he floated Pizza Express, he retained Kettners. Although many people have long assumed it was a Pizza Express - the pizzas sound the same and even the script on the menu is similar - it hasn't been, until now. In February, Boizot finally sold it back to Pizza Express for just under £2m.
Do you hear that noise? It is the sound of the middle classes writhing in pain. Once Pizza Express was a synonym for tasteful reliability. It was where middle-class parents of young children went to feel a little bit like adults again, certain their kids would be catered for. But then the company expanded and a wave of pizza envy swamped its core clientele. Everyone was convinced Pizza Express pizzas were getting smaller, that the company was now just another rapaciously commercial beast which happened to own an admirable number of large rubber plants. Surely they could only destroy the beautiful creature that is Kettners?
Well, they haven't. In fact, I'd say they have rejuvenated it. They have re-painted and re-furnished it. And they haven't screwed with the menu. It still has all the other things - lamb chops, halibut with new potatoes and salad niçoise - which distinguished it. Indeed, on the Sunday lunchtime we went there as a family, the only person who seemed less than convinced by the decor was Peter Boizot himself, who was passing through on his way to the Soho jazz festival. According to the waiter, Boizot said he thought the new carpet a little too red. There's no pleasing some people.
Unsurprisingly, the menu is a little more expensive than it once was, with pizzas at the £10 mark. They are big enough (possibly bigger than those at other Pizza Expresses; I don't want to get involved in that fight) and the bases are good and crisp. The scattering of ingredients on my Four Seasons was certainly generous, with slices of pepperoni fighting for space with the anchovies and mushrooms. My wife's La Reine - ham, olives, mushrooms - was equally plump. Eddie's lasagne was a model of the kind, being dense, unctuous and meaty, and the pasta had a real silkiness which suggested it hadn't been hanging about for too long.
We finished with a bowl of top-notch vanilla ice cream for him and a tart summer pudding for us. We didn't drink, but there's a simple list starting at £12.50 a bottle and, if you plundered from the remarkable selection in the champagne bar, going up to more than £800 for an enormous bottle of something vintage. If there's anything that sums up Kettners, it has to be that fine combo: vintage champagne and pizza. Long may it flourish.
