Moreintelligentlife.com is the website of Intelligent Life magazine. Articles about Arts, Lifestyle, Travels, and Ideas

A "LA COUPOLE" FOR LONDON

BRUCE PALLING | UNCORKED | November 12th 2007

Bruce gets a first taste of Le Café Anglais, the restaurant newly opened in Queensway by Rowley Leigh, whose previous flagship, Kensington Place, was the toast of west London for 20 years ...

Special to MORE INTELLIGENT LIFE

How do property developers "read" a city map? They must have some extrasensory skills in order to target zones or suburbs that are either ripe for development or perhaps underappreciated for whatever reason.

Let us look at Hyde Park and see if there are any likely clues as to where the barometer will rise next. Forget about all the East/West/Southern perimeters--no need to tell you that Mayfair, Knightsbridge and Kensington have been peaking for decades. So, we have to go north of the Park and see what is going on. Well, Notting Hill has certainly rocketed in recent years and Bayswater is starting to show signs of life. How about Queensway, then? Queensway? You mean the place where foreign-exchange booths have replaced the kebab houses and every other place is some sort of oriental restaurant? OK, this may be the last under-developed zone around the entire circumference of Hyde Park, but does this mean it is about to zoom up or merely that there are good reasons for it remaining a tip?

I was thinking about this from the newly created leather banquette in Rowley Leigh's Le Café Anglais, as, from a certain angle, you have the entire semi-functioning anarchy of Queensway sprawled beneath you. It is a valid speculation, as this very site was, until a few months ago, home to one of the biggest McDonald's in London--surely a sign that civilisation truly exists, if it can claw back a large fast-food emporium and replace it with the hottest new place in town.

The precise location of Café Anglais is on the second floor at the southern end of Whiteleys Shopping Centre, a slightly naff mall with a multiplex cinema, Marks and Spencer, Books Etc and an array of other high-street shops and restaurants. In an endeavour to distance itself somewhat from the Whiteleys ethos, the Café has a separate entrance with its own lift some distance away from the actual shopping-centre entrance. This leads to the delightful irony that the really inappropriate "street trade" doesn't come from outside, but through the rear door from the shopping centre itself. Apparently the opening of Café Anglais is supposed to herald a rebranding of the place, but I suspect that it will take more than a smart restaurant to turn it around, though of course it all helps.

It is early days; the Café Anglais had its "soft opening" on November 7th. But its 170 covers have been pretty much full for every meal. This ambitiously sized establishment shows every indication of being the largest fine/fast eating space anywhere between La Coupole in Paris and the Oyster Bar at Grand Central Station.

The overall style of Café Anglais is ocean-liner deco with a twist--a row of floor-to-ceiling windows, five huge mottled mirrors along one wall with big rectangular boxed lighting over stretches and whorls of leather banquettes. Halfway down on the left there are two huge rotisseries belting out considerable heat into that portion of the room. There are also strategically placed waiters' stations and an impressive private dining room with its own windows, unlike the usual darkened room not good for anything else.

I should warn the slightly squeamish that the carpet looks suspiciously like amoebas in a brown soup. The bar area has yet to get its stools, so looks a tad lonely--Hopperesque with the people. And the walls are still a bit sparse for comfort. Still, it exudes a modicum of class and, unlike at Rowley's previous creation, Kensington Place, there are even white tablecloths on the tables.

The cuisine is not as adventurous or creative as it was at Kensington Place, but firmly in the brasserie tradition of Racine in Knightsbridge or Galvin in Marylebone, if a touch more Anglo. Rowley explains the whole background to the place in an excellent cover story in the Financial Times's weekend edition (where he also writes a weekly food column).

Rather than having an entirely new three course meal of the day, there are weekly specials for lunch and dinner: rabbit stew, polenta and onion for Tuesday lunch; slow-roast brisket, beets and horseradish dumplings for Wednesday dinner.

Hot on the heels of the huge success of the La Petite Maison, the new Nicoise Restaurant in Mayfair, there is also a whole chicken, only rather than being stuffed with foie gras, it is done in lemon, thyme and cloves of garlic. The brilliant thing about the chicken though is that it is offered either whole, as a half, or as a breast or even leg, for a mere £5.50. Naturally the rotisseries are on full blast, with an impressive array of game at present: glazed pheasant with an escarole, chilli and walnut sauce; French partridge with cabbage and bacon, grouse, teal and mallard.

We have already been a couple of times, with impressive results once one makes the necessary allowances for the service--and for one's own fellow diners. One notoriously prickly Kensington Place regular in our group became enraged when the waiter forgot to bring the mustard he had ordered with his salami (don't ask me the reason why) and later was apoplectic when his roast lamb came with sauce. "Rowley has cooked for me for 20 years--he should know by now I hate gravy!" he kept muttering. As he had neglected to inform the waitress of this culinary prejudice, it beggars belief as to how it was supposed to be conveyed to the kitchen.

The other diners seemed more than satisfied, which included (this being really fringe Notting Hill) local architect Tchaik Chassay, Dave Gilmour of the Pink Floyd, an unwieldy socialite who insists on flying around the Cotswolds in his helicopter, writer Flora Fraser, Vicky Barnsley, the head of HarperCollins plus numerous chefs, including Rose Gray, and Pierre Kauffman from the much missed Tante Claire.

The plan is for Café Anglais to be open continuously from noon to midnight, so there are also attempts to introduce dishes that will work in a variety of situations. The most exciting of these are a range of dozen or so hors d'oeuvres which are either £3 each or three for £8.50. We tried out half of them and were very impressed at the quality--and the quantity, three being more than enough for two people. These are brilliant items to offer picky children who don't know what they want to eat. I only hope they keep the portions as robust as this, because I can think of nothing nicer than dropping by late afternoon and having rabbit rillettes with pickled endives; Parmesan custard and anchovy toast, or sardines in escabèche. I can also envisage a steady stream of customers' arriving either before or after a family night out at the cinema at the opposite end of the building.

The puddings may need a bit more work on them; Vicky urged me to try the Queen of Puddings, but this seemed to me to merely be custard and jam, while the bitter chocolate soufflé with pistachio ice cream was slightly too dry for comfort.

It isn't really fair to critique the service as this was the first week of the operation so you have to accept certain jolts and lapses. Many of the staff are beloved old faces from Kensington Place, though our waitress on both occasions was a charisma bypass who was far too leaden to warm to. The manager is Graham Williams, a charming man who exudes concern and confidence and successfully ran Bibendum during the 1990s.

The wine list follows in the Kensington Place tradition of offering a Catholic selection at reasonable prices. Krug NV is £135 and Dom '99 £200, which is less value for money than the Krug, but an excellent vintage. We had the Ch Grillet '04, (£75) the world's smallest appellation controlée wine, a heady perfumed white Rhone; plus the Volnay Santenots '93 (£75), a decadent red Burgundy with pleasant signs of decay.

The outstanding wine of the list though (surely this is the ultimate self-sacrifice, telling you this) is the La Pialade Côtes-du-Rhône '02 (£30). This is technically the "third wine" of Chateau Rayas, the greatest Chateauneuf du Pape, which means it wasn't considered good enough to make it into the second wine, which was judged not of a high enough standard to actually be Chateau Rayas.

All I can say is I hate to think how extraordinary Rayas '02 must be, as the Pialade is a voluptuous, apparently fully mature, Rhone, reminiscent of a classy Côte Rôtie. I dread to think where Rowley will get more stocks of this, as, when I did a wine search on the net, none was available anywhere on the globe.

Other slight quibbles? There needs to be a bigger supply of salt, pepper and chillies in the three little condiment bowls; proper, thinner, steak knives for the game would help. And perhaps a bowl in the middle of the table would be useful with all of these bird carcasses being devoured. Oh Yes, and if they insist on a £1.50 cover charge, there should be a bottle of olive oil and a small dish to dip your bread in. They could also do with more waiting staff, but they know this and will be sure to do something about it.

But forget about these gripes, otherwise you end up like that sad guest who only becomes animated when he has something to whinge about. This is a triumph, and if anything can help to humanise Queensway, this is it. Property developers, you have been alerted.

(Le Café Anglais, Whiteleys, 151 Queensway London W2. Telephone 0207 221 1415)