63-64 Frith Street, London W1 (020 7734 4545)
Meal for two, including wine and service, £90
It's time to confess. I have a drink problem. My problem is that I can't drink very much. I'm not a shandy-gets-me-giddy type of guy. I can manage half a bottle and perhaps, at a push, a glass of something else at the start or finish (but not both). More than that and I am deep into head-throbbing, eyeball-aching, please-kill-me-now hangover territory, and I don't like going there.
In most British restaurants, therefore, my wine adventures are limited. Yes, choices by the glass are growing, but are still limited, and the pricing of half bottles is designed to punish anyone so impertinent as to want one. So, unusually for me, I want to start by eulogising the wine list at Arbutus in London's Soho. There are lots of things to get excited about at Arbutus - it's named after the tree that stands not far away in the middle of Soho Square - but I want to start with the wine list.
The majority of it, more than 50 bottles, is available not just in 750ml bottles but also in 250ml carafes. It runs from a French Syrah-Grenache at £12.50 a bottle (£4.25 for the carafe) all the way up to a £90 Margaux. Like most of you, I am never likely to splash out £90 on a single bottle. But I might just be willing to split a £30 carafe with a friend to get a rare taste. The list is also broad and intelligent. In a business where everyone is striving for originality, can I suggest a little blatant copying? Other restaurants should nick the idea. Now!
Of course, stealing an idea like this won't make you Arbutus, which, despite its simplicity - white walls hung with white-textured panels for art, brown leather banquettes - has a personality all its own. The chef and co-owner Anthony Demetre used to be at the Michelin-starred Putney Bridge and my understanding, before I read the menu, was that this would be another Bistro de Luxe much like Galvin or Racine, a retreat towards the eternal verities of French classics - the dish of that day was tete de veau - but the net is thrown wider.
The presiding ethos is indeed French, with the scent of Provence in its nostrils, but it's also within striking distance of both Italy and Spain. So there is a gazpacho on the menu. Ricotta, Parmesan and Sicilian lemon confit also make an appearance. What is most important, though, is that each dish makes sense.
The star of our meal was slow-cooked breast of lamb, thinly sliced and served at room temperature on a hot plate, so that the ribbon of fat which gives this cut its flavour had just started to melt. With it was the crunch of fresh almonds, a few leaves and a dice of capers and pecorino cheese to cut through the richness. Great ingredients put together with intelligence and taste. That gazpacho, presented in a carafe to be poured over finely diced vegetables and shards of crouton, lacked the fiery end I look for from this chilled soup, but still had a ripeness and elegance.
The interest in presentation was repeated with the bouillabaisse. To the table came a pan with fillets of white fish including gurnard and bream, a little braised leek and fennel. There was a bowl of croutons, rouille and aioli. But the main event was the pan of rust-coloured liquor, as butch and solid and redolent of the sea as a moustachioed Marseille fisherman in leather chaps.
I wanted to lift the bowl and drink it, and when I put all the bits together it was a thing of true beauty. (Arbutus also has a bar at the front where solo diners can eat alone; I might just return by myself for the bouillabaisse, the most expensive dish on the menu, at a reasonable £18.95.) The other main, a tranche of halibut with soft, sweet petit pois a la francaise and crushed potatoes, again proved this to be a kitchen which knows how to make the best of good ingredients.
We finished with a cloud-like floating island, in a pool of equally light custard, which is children's food made to look grown up (and all the better for it; a 'sophisticated dessert' is missing the point) and summer berries with a lightly caramelised lime-flavoured cream with a biscuit base for crunch. And even though it was lunchtime, we allowed ourselves to try two wines. And at the end, though I was not drunk on alcohol, I confess I was very tipsy on pleasure.
