When the Royal Festival Hall opened in 1951, at a pivotal halfway point in our social history, midway between the outbreak of war in 1939 and the invention of sex in 1963, food was still rationed in Britain. Optimism was heavily rationed, too, in a country that was economically paralysed by warfare and by Washington's disdain about bailing it out, and this elegantly modernistic building and the Festival of Britain it housed were designed to project a sense of hope about a gleaming future of peace, prosperity, democratised high culture, chocolate and bananas.
Laying the foundation stone in 1949, Clement Attlee probably didn't foresee the day when cooks would cease fretting about getting half a pound of sugar on the black market, and would learn to speak freely of their "food philosophy". But isn't that the way with unshowy Labour PMs? As we learned last week, after driving to Fife for dinner at a Gordon Brown-recommended Cantonese restaurant where the most popular dish on the menu was chicken curry and chips, they have no philosophy of food themselves.
Helene Puolakka of Skylon at the refurbished RFH, on the other hand, does. Puolakka comes from Finland, a land of racing drivers, mobile phone manufacturers and endearingly crazy, platinum-haired people, but not widely admired for its cuisine. "My food philosophy is to take the best ingredients ... and bring them together in an innovative mix of flavours and colours," she confides to the menu. "I draw strongly on my childhood memories of fresh seasonal foods such as wild berries and mushrooms ... and, of course, not to forget, game when the season starts."
That clumsy "not to forget" provoked a childhood memory of my own - of my mother talking to an endless sequence of Finnish au pair girls in very loud, exceedingly slow pidgin English. "Anja, not to forget, Matthew not to be smoking Players No 6," she would say. "He five year old, understanding, yes?" Few stayed long in this bizarre inversion of the Mind Your Language classroom, and not one of them, adorable and often generous with their fags though they were, could cook.
Puolakka certainly can, although perhaps not as well as she imagines. The real selling point of Skylon, having said that, isn't the food but the river view through colossal windows, this being about as fetching a vista of the Thames as the South Bank has to offer. Inside, the Wembley pitch-sized space is light, airy, desultory and thoroughly joyless, with such fripperies as faux-medieval lamps (a sort of jousting knight's helmet) and opulent displays of sunflowers doing nothing to infuse it with life and soul. Learning later of Terence Conran's involvement in the refurbishment did nothing to send me scurrying for the brandy and the blood pressure-testing kit.
The obligatory swanky bar at the centre splits the space into a grill and brasserie section on one side and "Fine Dining" on the other. "It's a terrible mistake to call it 'Fine Dining'," my friend sagely observed. "I mean, what is Fine Dining?"
Fine Dining is as Fine Dining does, I replied after the fashion of Forrest Gump, not having a clue what this meant, and soon enough we were snorting irritably at a freebie pre-starter - goat's cheese and something indistinct - presented by one of several slightly over-eager waiters (the sommelier was excellent, though, and recommended a totally delicious South African pinot noir).
From a set menu (there's no à la carte here) irritatingly short on upper-case letters, my friend started with butter-poached Dorset lobster with broad bean salad, cashews and pink grapefruit vinaigrette - that's Fine Dining, I guess: much too much going on for no apparent reason - and wasn't pleased.
"The lobster isn't fresh enough and the sauce doesn't go with it, he said. "The grapefruit makes the lobster seem bland. Doesn't work at all." My fricassée of wild mushrooms with summer vegetables, meanwhile, was a nice idea, but so spectacularly mean with the mushrooms that for a moment I seriously wondered if we'd slipped through a worm hole and gone back to the austerity years.
The main courses were an improvement. Lamb in three cuts -shoulder, fillet and kidneys - was "lovely and pink, and very good indeed, although not improved by the vegetables", which included a gratin of Swiss chard. My calf's liver, pan-fried and served with glorious caramelised endive and a citric sauce, was perfectly melty but lacked big flavour.
Puddings, though, were average, with "crisp parcel of Braeburn apple" tasting "more of the parcel than the apple", and the coconut mousse that came with my mango salad deflecting from rather than enhancing the magnificence of that most regal of fruits.
Reports suggest that the less poncy food served in the other sections is better and cheaper than this more exhibitionist stuff, which makes me think Puolakka might consider refining her philosophy more into line with "Simple is good." Ambition is a marvellous thing for those with the energy, but sometimes, in an age of decadent plenty, it could use a little rationing.
Rating 5.25/10
Telephone 020-7654 7800.
Address Royal Festival Hall, London SE1.
Open All week, lunch, noon-2.30pm; dinner, 5.30-10.45pm
