The old joke about sex only being dirty if it's done properly applies to puddings, too. It takes a filthy mind to make a great pudding, an understanding of unbridled lust.
It is reassuring to discover that Gordon Ramsay, a chef who has built his reputation on the twin culinary virtues of precision and consistency, should also have the right sort of dirty mind for the perfect third course.
Consider this: a plate of fresh, unhusked strawberries, sliced bananas and marshmallows, laid before a small, black cast-iron cauldron atop a burner, which contains a mug full of thick, glossy, molten Valrhona bitter chocolate. You dip the items on the plate into the chocolate fondue and try to get them to your mouth before luscious drips dribble down your chin. And when the dipping items have run out, you set to with a spoon.
Consider this, too: at Gordon Ramsay's Boxwood Cafe it costs a fiver. The overall bill may end up nudging the ton, but when it is made up of keenly priced items like this, it is tough to quibble. In so many ways I see the Boxwood Cafe, which opened at London's Berkeley Hotel five months ago, as Ramsay's coming of age as a restaurateur. This is not to decry his other talents. I ate recently at his three-star flagship restaurant in Chelsea and there was no denying the sheer class of the operation.
The Boxwood Cafe is something else entirely. Ramsay said he wanted to create one of those informal, upscale eateries that New York does so well, a place where he could take his four kids, and he has achieved his ambition. As a parent I like the fact that it really does welcome kids, that there are changing tables in the loos and paper and crayons at hand. I like its buzz and the clean décor.
But most of all he has the food right. A starter of fried oysters, crisp outside, oozing within, showed the knife-edge skill of the kitchen, and the sweet lemon and fennel salad on which they were bedded showed its good taste. A tart of pea purée, asparagus and leeks was also classy. For my main course I chose pork and sweetbread sausages, rich, adult and intensely herbed, which came with a sauce of dark caramelised onions. I also had their crisp, greaseless onion rings. How can you not respect a kitchen that can batter a ring of onion?
Only a main course of River Dart sea trout on couscous, the grain spiked with lemon and strewn with cherry tomatoes, missed the mark. The fish had a pleasing charcoal sear, but lacked natural flavour and seasoning. My only other concern is a familiar one: the wine list has no bargain basement.
No matter. It was soon time for pudding; for a thick, boisterous sherry and plum trifle and that chocolate fondue, and afterwards, for coffee and a plate of petit fours from L'Artisan du Chocolat, the best chocolatier in Britain. I have not always been impressed by Ramsay's restaurant ventures. At times, particularly at Claridge's, I sensed a clumsy hand on the tiller, with fripperies emphasised over the contents of the plates. At Boxwood, however, a certain maturity has descended. That filthy mind has learned how to indulge its adult fantasies. I for one am grateful.
· The Boxwood Cafe, Berkeley Hotel, Wilton Place, London SW1 (020 7235 1010). Meal for two, including wine and service, £90.
