Old Bengal Warehouse, 16B New Street, London EC2 (020 3503 0790). Meal for two, including wine and service £130
Before mounting the case for the prosecution it is, I think, sometimes worth getting the mitigation in first. D&D London, the vast restaurant group now named after David Lowe and Des Gunewardena, who took control of the company when Sir Terrence Conran stepped back a few years ago, is serious about what it does. The determination to democratise good food which inspired the business at the beginning with launches such as Le Pont de la Tour and the Blueprint Café, is still present in everything they do. After a period of expansion through acquisition they have just launched four restaurants, two in their newly opened South Place Hotel at Moorgate and two more in London's oldest surviving warehouse, built by the East India Company in the 1770s. The Old Bengal Warehouse, near Liverpool Street Station, is home to a bar and two restaurants, one specialising in fish, one specialising in meat.
There is a cast-iron law which says that the interior of a proper fish restaurant must, wherever possible, look something like a trawler; it must be at least a little rough hewn and industrial, as if they have just sluiced out the fish guts. (This rule does not apply to steak restaurants. Nobody expects them to look like abattoirs.)
Fish Market does not break the rule. There are hefty metal columns and many hard surfaces and a ducted ceiling. There is a bar for eating at, with a modest fish display; size isn't everything but with a place like this it's nice to get a serious eye full of the offering, red in claw, beady of eye. The menu reads fine, with a list of crustacea, a couple of potted options, a small choice of oysters and then a bunch of starters and mains that would make you nod slowly with recognition.
We'll leave those for the moment and deal with the key issue which is attention to detail. For if you were making that case for the prosecution the evidence would sit in three side dishes. First up, a salad of "heritage tomato, shallots, olive oil". It's a simple proposition. It's so bloody simple there is absolutely nowhere to hide. It depends on those tomatoes being as pert and taut as a Russian oligarch's botoxed girlfriend. These were like cotton wool. They were all squelch and suck. It baffles me how any kitchen can taste tomatoes like that and conclude it's OK to serve them. Item two: a side of broccoli, anchovy and chilli. Deathly, over-boiled broccoli, very little smack of chilli, no sign of anchovy at all. It tasted like leftovers made by someone who didn't like broccoli. Finally, triple-cooked chips. You cooked these three times? Really? What did you use? A humidifier? Triple cooking refers to a specific process, developed by Heston Blumenthal, involving parboiling followed by twice frying, and requires something thick cut. These were skinny and undercooked.
The failure to get this sort of stuff right matters because Fish Market is not as cheap as properly cooked chips. A lobster cocktail was nice, but stiffly priced at £11.50 for the amount of meat in it, and £10.50 for six slightly under-seasoned queenie scallops, gratinated on their shell, felt like an enthusiastic mark up. The best value was a whole sea bass, taken off the bone, grilled and served with an expert sauce vierge of chopped tomatoes, lemon juice and basil. This, for £20, seemed pretty fair. A good Bakewell tart and a crisp-shelled apple pie were better value at a fiver each.
The point remains, though. You can charge stiffly for great sea food; given the issues around supply and sustainability it has no claims on cheapness. But the whole experience has to be spot on. D&D London may have some great restaurants in its porfolio. But none of that excuses a tragic bowl of flabby chips.
