There is a word I don't use often enough in this column and it is 'delicious'. I'm not sure why. It's not a word I hate, like 'garnish', which does nothing but celebrate superfluity. I suppose 'delicious' feels too obvious for a restaurant column. It's a bit like a political editor describing a cabinet minister as a 'lying bastard'. Well yes, naturally. But how and in what way?
And yet sometimes, it is the simpler words that do the job most effectively. At Patterson's, a new restaurant in London's Mayfair, I ate some things that were really delicious. What? You want details? Oh, all right then. We were brought, as a pre-starter, a little cup of 'seafood cappuccino'. You get used to these savoury cappuccinos in this gig. Rich soup, mounted with milk solids, which are foamed to within an inch of their lives. But this was smarter than that. An intense seafood broth, yes, but the foamed top was the lightest of pommes purees. You probably want me to call it mashed potato, but that doesn't describe it. This was a cloud-light foil to the dramatics below.
After that I had a ravioli of ham hock with roast chanterelles in a ham hock consomme. The middle of the ravioli was a duck egg yolk, still runny, that flowed thickly into the savoury broth the moment the pasta was punctured. Other dishes were equally standout: there were roast scallops with a dainty squid, stuffed with aubergine, alongside a tooth-staining squid-ink sauce; there was, for the main course, a bound saddle of rabbit, a dark sticky ragout of rabbit meat and a creamy tart of Swiss chard, and an expertly cooked beef fillet with cannelloni of wild mushrooms and duck liver. As I say, delicious.
It may be that I'm enthusing like this because the food didn't match my expectations. Indeed, I was highly suspicious. The restaurant is named after the chef, Raymond Patterson, who used to cook at the Garrick Club, a place I have never visited but have always hated. I used to loathe the late Robin Day for wearing the pink and turquoise striped Garrick Club tie while presenting Question Time, and now I hate Michael Burke for wearing it while presenting the news.
What happens? He gets up in the morning, opens the tie cupboard and randomly chooses the club tie? Bollocks! There is nothing impressive about membership of an institution where most of the inmates probably have overly developed fantasies about Anne Widdecome in a leather basque.
And, of course, London's clubland has hardly been a standard bearer for gastronomy. It's all dun-coloured soups and roasts. Or, perhaps not, for here is a chef with a serious grasp of French classical cookery, with the imagination to give it those contemporary touches. Not everything is perfect. Puddings were a weak suit. The 'lemon glaze' on my companion's blueberry cheesecake was a weird jelly puck and my Grand Marnier souffle was more than a little depressed by the time it reached the table. The maÀtre d' was also odd, managing to make the stabilising of a rocky table a production number worthy of Busby Berkeley, and she muttered incoherently, and wrongly, about frogs' legs when we asked for more information on the rabbit dish, which indicated she didn't have a clue about the menu. That aside, this white-walled, wooden-floored, elegant room is worth it for most of the food. Sure, it ain't cheap, but then deliciousness costs.
· Patterson's, 4 Mill Street, London W1 (020 7499 1308). Dinner for two, with wine and service, £120.
