Telephone: 020-8742 0766
Address: 6-8 Elliott Road, London W4
Rating: 14.5/20
South Africa doesn't exactly spring to mind when one thinks of the great gastro-destinations. It produces all manner of exotic fruit, one or two dishes that may have made it into the general consciousness, and South Africans are masters of burnt meat in various forms, but of the more sophisticated forms of kitchen culture, well, it is kinder to pass over that in silence.
Such cultural poverty is another pernicious consequence of apartheid - it is one of the abiding ironies of South Africa's history that what modest culinary achievements it has (vivid spicing, cheery curries, deft ways with fish) are owed to the Mozambique Portuguese and Cape Malays. It's also odd that a country that makes decent wines (see Superplonk) should not have given food the same attention.
Like the daft embassy of a small, ramshackle country, the Springbok Cafe in west London has been a lone outpost over here for some time. Now the same team has opened Fish Hoek. It makes no claim to push back the boundaries of restaurant design, but it is light, unpretentious, welcoming - and the attractions don't stop there. Before I get to the food, however, I must give credit to an unusually intelligent pricing structure - there are no first or second courses (though there are puddings): instead, each dish has two prices, one for a half portion and one for a full, so you can taste several different dishes rather than make do with the usual two or three. And, given their distinctive nature, you may well be tempted to do so.
As the name suggests, this is a restaurant for fish, the whole fish and nothing but the fish, one or two of which may be unfamiliar to even the most adventurous trougher: musselcracker, stumpnose and hottentot, to name but three. But the kitchen has an international bent, too, what with Irish mussels, Cornish skate, Turkish crayfish, Scottish haddock, Mauritian prawns and Canadian lobsters. Whatever the country of origin, the treatment is bright, contemporary and lively: red mullet with lime and pomegranate salsa; grilled silver trevally, pak choi and slow-roasted aubergine; white stumpnose with crushed new potatoes and fresh chilli; lobster with garlic, lemon, chilli and fresh herbs. If any one nationality puts its stamp on this food, it is Mozambique/Portugal, with its love of chilli-based sauces.
Finistere and I short cut the agonies of choice by opting for a seafood platter for two that promised prawns, mussels, two types of clams, lobster and three different line fish, as well as the incidental pleasure of much hands-on eating. When it arrived, I couldn't criticise the portion control, even if it did cost £70.
I couldn't criticise the food, either. It's not the most sophisticated fish cooking I've come across, but that isn't the point of Fish Hoek. Prawns (large and king-size), langoustines and lobster, squid and mussels, razor and palourdes clams need absolutely precise cooking if they aren't to turn into high-tensile rubber. The shellfish were succulent and tender, with the caramelised sweetness that comes from good grilling. The lobster, in particular, was beautifully served by the restrained use of chilli and herbs.
It was more difficult to distinguish the individual treatment of the red mullet, kabeljou and snoek, because the sauces and vegetable bits and bobs of their original dishes got a bit lost in the general melange. However, they were impeccably fresh and, again, very well handled. My only regret was that I didn't have more room for the bed of rice on which all this was served, because the diverse juices and sauces had all soaked down into it, creating a fragrant mulch.
Alas, by that time I was reduced to picking at the odd morsel and finishing off the bottle of perky Van Zylshof Sauvignon. I still wonder how we managed puddings, an odd nectarine concoction and an even odder one of roasted bananas. In fact, the £20.50 bottle helped inflate the bill to £105.50, which seems a lot. But assorted crustacea and molluscs are never cheap - the lobster was billed at £25 on its own - and you can taste your way around the menu for rather less than that, which would be cheaper and probably no less cheerful.
· Open Lunch, Tues-Sun, 12.30-2pm; dinner, Tues-Sat, 6pm onwards. All major credit cards, except AmEx. Wheelchair access (no WC).
