Marco
4.75/10
Telephone 020-7915 2929 .
Address Chelsea Football Club, Stamford Bridge, Fulham Road, London SW6.
Open Tues-Sat, lunch, noon-2.30pm (Saturday matchdays, £45 three course set lunch only); dinner, 6-10.30pm.
'It's just... it's just... it's just..." stuttered my friend, taking in the scene with a wearily affronted eye. "Well, it's just wrong, isn't it?"
He clearly had no plans to expand on this moral judgment, nor did he need to. When two middle-aged nostalgists for the old terrace culture meet in a swanky restaurant on the site of a football club, and one elliptically expresses his distaste at the plushness and glitz, the other instinctively understands the Ron Managerial regret: the lack of filth, the exceedingly long odds on contracting food poisoning... isn't it, mmm, all a bit cashmere jumpers-for-goalposts? The general sanitising, in other words, of an experience that, for all the inherent indignities involved - or, rather, perhaps because of them - we affect so sorely to miss.
The restaurant in question goes by the name of Marco, that culinary legend Marco Pierre White having swapped his name, staff and expertise for a share (with Roman Abramovich) of the profits. And even by the standards of gentrification that have suffused the English Premier League, it still comes as a surprise to find it at Stamford Bridge. Although, like my friend, a follower of Tottenham Hotspur, I was a frequent visitor to the Bridge in the era of Ken Bates and his electrified fence, and it wasn't pretty. Once I was escorted from the West Stand by stewards around 23 seconds after kick-off, when death threats greeted my plaintive cry of "Come on you Lilywhites!" Another time, the chap in front pledged to stab me at half-time by way of a tough, no-nonsense counterstrike to a polite request for him to sit down. When I realised that a section of the crowd genuinely regarded the chant "We all agree/Our coons are better than your coons" as an expression of anti-racist sentiment, it seemed as useful a time as any to cease going.
Returning a dozen years later, I was astounded by the newly discovered civility of the Chelsea faithful - I heard not a single hiss in imitation of escaping Zyklon B - and in so far as a glitzy restaurant reflects this cultural shift, it deserves to be celebrated. Having said that, all piety and worthiness aside, a more unapologetic clip joint you will seldom encounter.
The room is fine if early 90s Kings Road disco is to your taste - mirrored ceiling, a pillar sprayed a glittery gold the precise shade of Captain Kirk's spandex top, reflective glass behind the squidgy banquettes. And the service was good, most notably from a chatty Italian manager who clearly knows his business. Elsewhere, however - from human history's most watery and oddly garnished Bloody Mary (a potent red chilli pepper, forsooth) through a sequence of bland dishes that whispered "captive audience" - perfectionist attention to detail was difficult to discern.
What the menu knew as a "selection of finest cured meats", served with crispy Sardinian bread, proved a fridge-cold array of insipid salami and mediocre ham that made us wonder whether an oversight at the printers had robbed that "finest" of its prefix "Tesco's" (but at least it never made it on to our bill). Kipper pâté was a little clinical, and calves' tongue, served with a thin sauce gribiche and a remoulade eccentrically dotted with bits of boiled egg, feckless to the point of tastelessness.
Perplexed by the absence among the starters of an ironic prawn cocktail, not to mention a Black Forest gateau among the puds, we both had no choice but to go for the sole manifestation of the Footballer's Special for the main course. The steak was excellent, with the correctly fatty flavour of good ribeye and cooked precisely as requested. But the chips weren't crispy enough and the accompanying béarnaise sauce lacked the required tang of tarragon.
Treacle tart with clotted cream was sub-Greggs, Colston Bassett Stilton was too cold, and as we finished off a second bottle of a Trentino red called Terodelgo (pre-match anaesthesia being essential for the Spurs fan at Chelsea), we couldn't help but reflect that the set lunch here costs much the same as at that perennial top five finisher Le Gavroche, where they chuck in a half-bottle of wine, coffee and petits fours for luck.
There have been many far worse franchises in recent years, not all of them involving Gary Rhodes. But being unquestionably the greatest chef Britain has produced, Marco Pierre White might wish to spend a little more time overseeing the kitchen at his latest venture. Finally, who'd have thought you'd ever see Molton Brown liquid soap in a loo at the Shed End of the stadium where they used to pee in each other's pockets (the refined ones, anyway; those whose finishing schools were bombed in the war preferred to watch it dribble down the terraces).
"I'm telling you," reiterated my friend morosely as we settled the colossal bill and headed off for the ritual slaughter. "It. Just. Isn't. Right."
