Paternoster Chophouse, Paternoster Square, London EC4 (020 7029 9400).
Meal for two, including wine and service, £110
Before I ate at the Paternoster Chophouse, the latest venture from Terence Conran, I regarded his restaurants as slick, professional but ultimately soulless businesses, which placed the emphasis on function and form rather than food. Then I had lunch. Now I regard them as slick, professional but ultimately soulless businesses, which place the emphasis on function and form rather than food. There are occasions when meeting expectations can be seen as a virtue. This isn't one of them.
I only went to the Chophouse, which sits in the new Paternoster Square development by London's St Paul's Cathedral, because a number of people in the restaurant industry had accused me of trading off old prejudices where poor Terence is concerned. They said he was a victim of 'tall poppy syndrome' and that, without him, the British restaurant industry would be much the poorer. Lest this review be taken as an ill-considered hatchet job (as against a considered one), let me say that I genuinely think he has been an important figure in British cultural life. There is no doubt that, through Habitat, Conran democratised great design. He brought style and function into the kitchen. A few of his restaurants - Bibendum, the Orrery, the Blueprint Cafe - are worthy of their reputations. But my experience of the rest leads me to believe that, while he may have been a champion of the big white plate, he doesn't really care about the reliability of what goes on them.
Part of the problem with Conran is the lack of coherence. Over the years, he has run modern European brasseries and French bistros, Asian cafes and tapas bars. You don't really know what he wants to be. is also a Butler's Wharf Chophouse) is meant to be his take on the great British culinary traditions and, my recent rant about Throgmortons aside, the menu reads well: there's a whole list of shellfish from oysters to cracked crab by way of the obligatory potted shrimps; there's wood pigeon with pickled walnuts or fish cakes to start; well-hung steaks, Dover sole and haggis and neeps for mains, followed by stickytoffee pudding and Bakewell tart. It's big and robust. It's boy's food. And at odds with the room, which has a glossy, effete, city, glass and mirrors feel to it. It's so scrubbed, so very Truman Show, I was almost minded to indulge in a little spray-can tagging to give it some true urban character.
Instead we ordered lunch, which is cooked in an open kitchen, so you can see the chefs sweating over your lunch. Was everything we ate awful? Was it a disaster? No. It was worse than that: it was completely inconsistent. At each course, one of us had something that was great. The other one had something that was well below par or just plain bad. One of us was happy, one glum. We didn't even have the guilty pleasure of shared resentment. For example, I started with a plate of angels and devils on horseback - oysters and prunes respectively, wrapped in crisp bacon. Both were lovely, the oysters rich and succulent, the sticky sweet prunes playing a smart game of catch with the treaclecured bacon. My companion, however, had mussels and cockles in a cider and leek broth and, while the liquor had a good depth of flavour, the mussels were sad little creatures and over half the cockles were completely locked shut which means they were dead. Dead shellfish is not a confidence-inducing measure in a restaurant. You cannot help but start to worry about episodes of food poisoning, which is not a good thing when your companion is the managing editor of your newspaper, and the man you negotiate your pay with. (Note to self: avoid poisoning boss.)
It was the same again at the main course. My grilled liver and bacon was a rich, meaty plateful. My companion's roasted partridge was dry, the bread sauce bland and the game chips that accompanied them, soggy. We ordered wines by the glass. His was fine. My Merlot was corked. A corked bottle is understandable, just one of those things which nobody knows about until the cork is pulled. But how can you pour a wine by the single glass and not notice that it's off? Unless you don't really care.
On to dessert: a good sticky-toffee pudding. My sherry trifle was a dense and undistinguished creature. Too much sponge. Not enough sherry. Even the coffees were inconsistent. A great espresso; a mediocre cappuccino.
And then, at the end of this - three courses, one bottle of water, a couple of glasses of wine each, coffee - we get a bill for £111.66, including an added charge of £12.41 for service, which was pleasant but nothing more, save a little slow. I have said time and again I don't have a problem with restaurant experiences costing money, but they have to be good. And this sort of Conran experience never is good. Nobody was watching for consistency. Nobody was making sure that everyone got their money's worth. It's exactly this sort of highgloss, high-concept outfit which, by failing to deliver, makes people suspicious of top-end restaurants in general; which undermines the very notion of democratisation that, in matters of design, the owner once made so much his own. And that's why I don't like Terence Conran's restaurants.
