Telephone: 020-8672 0114
Address: 2 Bellevue Road, London SW17
Rating: 17/20

It's a simple enough question: where do you go to eat where you know you won't ever be disappointed? Everyone I asked recently replied, without exception, Chez Bruce. The food is brilliant, they say. The service is smooth. The standard never varies. It's always tip-top. And Bruce Poole, the chef, is such a sweetie. That's what people say. Eventually, I went down to Wandsworth to see if this paragon of contemporary restaurateuring is really as good as it gets.

Poole is not a new kid on the block, nor is Chez Bruce a hotshot opening. The restaurant has been comfortably occupying the site (formerly the territory of Marco Pierre White in his protean phase) for a number of years. In fact, I reviewed it some years ago; favourably, I seem to recall. Since then, Poole has spread his wings a bit. Along with his chum, Nigel Platts-Martin, proprietor of The Square, he has been a moving hand behind the menus at The Glasshouse in Kew and La Trompette in Chiswick, both of which have attracted their own fair share of appreciative applause. Chez Bruce, however, is where he cooks, and it was to Chez Bruce that I travelled one lunchtime, to meet up with Superplonk and have a second critical look.

Superplonk was already in situ when I arrived, characteristically nose in book and glass in hand. Try this, he said. You don't see it on many wine lists. It was a German trocken made with the scheurebe grape, a grape that is as obscure as it is delicious. We agreed that the trocken treatment didn't really suit its pink grapefruit, perfumed character, but it was a joy to find it at all and was, so Superplonk said, something of a marker for a list that had more than its fair share of interesting wines.

That's all well and good, but a man does not lunch on wine alone - or I don't, anyway. So after all this oenological waffle, I was anxious to set my teeth into solid matter. The solid matter that I chose was deep-fried brill with tartare sauce and then a breast of duck with a pithivier savoyarde, glazed endive and madeira - a combination that, in theory, should bring together sweet meat and sweeter sauce, bitter vegetable, creamy potato and buttery pastry. Could a tastebud ask for more on a winter's day? The idea behind the choice of the brill was that simplicity can be a severer test of a kitchen's ability than the fancy stuff.

Malcolm also favoured a winter warmer as a main course - sauté of stuffed poulet fermier with parsnips, lentils, chanterelles and tarragon, as the menu put it, preceded by a salad of smoked salmon, spinach, rosevale potatoes and chives. This turned out to be a layered stack of nicely smoked fish, tender leaves and firm slices of potato, all doused in a creamy dressing. It was a cunning combination of contrasting textures, as well as a subtle, palliative mouthful.

I could find no fault with my brill, other than a Scrooge-like tendency with the superb tartare sauce. The fish was fresh, the breadcrumb coating - Japanese, I suspect - crisp as Anne Robinson. Simple it might be; flawless it undoubtedly was. I could only conclude that the kitchen was moving like a Derby winner.

That view was confirmed by the main course. Each part was a model of how it should be cooked - duck breast pink but not raw, and cara-melised on the skin side; a bitter/ sweet endive; a madeira sauce with just the right level of acidity to balance it; and a light pastry case to hold a little tower of potato slices bathed in cream. Yippee.

The breast of Superplonk's chicken had been curled around its stuffing, so that it looked like a poultry swiss roll, but it had enough flavour to justify the farmyard provenance. The pulses, root veg and fungi united to provide a warm, comfortable bed for it.

I should add that, guided by both Superplonk and a skilful sommelier, by this time we had moved smoothly on to a bottle of Crozes Hermitage, which sat very easily with both courses. However, it could not compete with Superplonk's sticky toffee pudding or my crème brûlée. SP went out on something of a high, sugar or otherwise, with the pudding. My crème brûlée was fine, but if I were to be properly critical, I would have to say that the texture was a touch too thick for the true, sensual overkill that this pudding should deliver in its perfect form.

And, yes, it wasn't cheap - £137.90 for two, to be exact. But hang on, this included two exceptionally good bottles of wine, plus a brace of glasses of dessert wine for good measure - yuletide spirit and all that - so the food costs were a measly £47. Which, however you look at it, was a snip for cooking of such assurance, such taste and such old-fashioned virtue. All those people were quite right, after all.

· Open Mon-Fri, 12 noon-2pm, 7-10.30pm; Sat, 12.30-2.30pm, 6.30-10.30pm; Sun, 12.30-3pm, 7-10.30pm. Menus: Weekday lunch, £23.50 for three courses; Sat lunch, £25 for three courses; Sun lunch, £27.50 for three courses. Dinner, £30 for three courses. Wheelchair access (no WC).