49b/c South End, Croydon (020 8680 2010). Meal for two, including wine and service, £90
It was pure obstinacy that sent me to Albert's Table in Croydon. Or an instinct for self-preservation. Or the streak of snobbery that runs through me like the gnarly varicose veins in an old dear's legs. The fact is that as a seeker after truth, there is only one food story in Croydon that I really ought to cover right now: the arrival there of Britain's largest restaurant. Cosmo can seat 800 people, has a menu of 300 dishes from nine Asian countries – why settle for sushi when you can have rogan josh, too? – 10 cooking stations and a live Bengal tiger in a cage. All of this is true, except for the last bit, though I wouldn't be surprised if there was a big cat tucked away in a corner somewhere. It's that sort of place. It reads like a restaurant on anabolic steroids.
What is most irritating about Cosmo is that it is all so bloody predictably Croydon. I do not mean this as an insult to all the good, civilised, tasteful, attractive people who live there. I mean it only as an insult to all the bad, rowdy, tasteless, ugly ones. Perhaps later in the year I will summon the will. But right now I couldn't face it. And yet I did not want to snub London's southernmost fringe, so instead I went to Albert's Table, which is a solid, sturdy restaurant knocking out solid, sturdy dishes full of flavours that loiter after you've finished. Albert's Table does not do subtle – and I mean that as a compliment. If it offers you an ingredient, you taste the ingredient. In the main it is French bistro food, with the occasional nod in other directions that don't feel forced.
A shortcrust tart of Dorset crab is made with rust-coloured brown meat and a pastry that cracks and crumbles in all the right ways. A salad of bitter endive, blue cheese and chives comes with a mustard dressing that makes its presence known. A thickly coated gratin of thinly sliced Jerusalem artichokes with hazelnuts has the kind of crust that has you picking away at it with a spoon.
That dish was the last vegetarian moment before some serious meat cookery, which relies on slicks of huge-flavoured jus, and a lot of hot fricassée and sauté action. The mains read complicated but make sense on the plate or, in the case of a venison dish for two, in the big pan brought to the table: at the bottom, a braised hotpot of bambi shoulder with swede and parsnips, bound by the sort of sauce that speaks of things being cooked long and slow to their essence. On the top, some slices of the leg served riotously pink. The only off-note was some rather bready dumplings. A mixed plate of pork, both slow-roast leg and belly, with a curl of crackling, soft polenta and salsify was a deserving end for the pig in question. And that's what comes over most from the food here: a care and attention to detail, most obvious in the roast sirloin of beef with wild mushrooms and celeriac. They serve the beef medium rare. Because, as we all know, sirloin should be cooked no more than that. Or, as the menu puts it: "If you prefer your beef well done, we recommend ordering braised feather blade of local Hereford beef." So do I.
We finished with a tumescent banana soufflé, a leaking chocolate fondant and a caramelised apple tart which, for my tastes, was the only dish that didn't deliver. The fruit was burnished, but there was not a whiff of your actual lip-sticking caramel. Hey ho. There was a pokey borlotti bean mousse to start and warm mince pies to finish, and the general thrum and roll of happy waiting staff doing what they do best. At £29.50 for three courses, with the odd supplement, it does not seem extortionate for this level of cooking and quality of ingredients. Plus there is the added benefit of a wine list which prices bottles £3-4 below what you would pay in the centre of London.
Cosmo's arrival in Croydon may be a reason to go there to just point and stare; Albert's Table is a reason to go there to eat.
Email Jay at jay.rayner@observer.co.uk or visit
theguardian.com/profile/jayrayner for all his reviews in one place
