Jay Rayner 

Two out of three

When there's only three things on the menu, there's no excuse for limp fries. Jay Rayner makes his mind up about Marylebone's new steak-only bistro.
  
  


Le Relais de Venise l'entrecote, 120 Marylebone Lane, London W1 (020 7486 0878).
Meal for two, including wine, £60. No booking

At Le Relais de Venise l'entrecote, you can have anything you like as long as it's salad, steak and chips. If you don't fancy a walnut salad you're screwed, because that's the only salad they serve. If you prefer rump to entrecote, don't go. They don't do it. Not that this is a place without options. Heaven forfend! We live in the age of the consumer, so here's the choice: rare, medium or well done. Though you should expect to be scowled at if you ask for well done. This part of the operation I can wholly endorse. Anybody who wants their steak well done deserves to be scowled at, even if they're my lunch companion. (My friend Miriam is a film producer, but, unlike most of her colleagues, she has no taste for blood.)

As to the rest of it, I remain unconvinced. I can see the arguments. The branch of Le Relais which has launched on London's Marylebone Lane is an outpost of the original, which opened in Paris 46 years ago. The look has been replicated: mirrors on the walls, white paper tablecloths over undersheets in primary colours, banquettes and big windows. There are even pretty waitresses, unironically wearing French maids' outfits of the sort that were all the rage at Seventies fancy-dress parties.

In Paris, Le Relais has become an institution. People queue out the door, not least because there, as here, you can't book. They come because steak and chips done really well is a dish without peer, the essence of French bistro cooking. In an age of style over substance, when yak burgers are dribbled with ponzu and frottaged with Daikon, on menus boasting 93 dishes from 14 divergent culinary traditions, a restaurant that does only one thing really well is a thing of beauty.

Except that Le Relais doesn't do it well enough. The salad, steak and chips combo costs £17. For that you get a crisp but rather tiny salad. The steak is good, no doubt about it: fine beef with real texture and flavour. (As long as you don't follow Miriam's lead and have the poor thing incinerated.) It's so good that they should tell us its provenance. It's not like they're short of space on the menu. It also comes with a sauce the recipe of which is a closely guarded secret. For what it's worth I detected green herbs - basil? tarragon? - some anchovy and butter and perhaps some Dijon. Not that thrilling a secret, then, but it had a fresh, salty edge.

But the serving of steak, for that money, seemed on the ungenerous side, and the chips were just plain bad: limp and soggy. If you are going to do only three things you'd better make sure all three are done perfectly. If steak had been one of the options on a short menu of bistro classics I would have moaned about the chips, but would still have liked the place. As it stands, though, it seems as much of a pose as the fashion-victim joints with their bloated menus, against which Le Relais sets its face. At least there is a choice of puddings, of the ice cream and profiteroles variety, for around £4.50 each.

After I returned from lunch, I received news of a new opening, near Le Relais on Baker Street: a branch of L'Entrecote Cafe de Paris, the first of which opened in Geneva in 1930. The concept is thrilling. For a set price you get a green salad, steak with special sauce, chips and dessert. You wait decades for a steak-frites restaurant, and then two come along at once.

jay.rayner@observer.co.uk

 

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