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London
restaurant guide: The Victoria, London SW14
The Victoria gastropub in west London is pretty glorious,
says Zoe Williams
The Victoria
10 West Temple Sheen, London SW14 (020 8876 4238)
Even in a crisp, established autumn, the sun streams through
this airy, glass-ceilinged dining-room, and you could easily
imagine lingering all day – against which eventuality
they have taken the precaution of providing really uncomfortable,
French-bistro-ish seating. Nevertheless, the setting is
lovely, and the restaurant is apparently very rarely empty.
I was heartened to see I wanted every single thing on the
menu, as did my companion, J. We reared away in unison from
a goat’s cheese tart, but only because it looked like
the vegetarian option. She had the Cornish mussels with
curry spices on sourdough (£7), which were beautiful.
To taste, that is – the sourdough was a great big
lump. It made the whole thing look a bit coarse and Australian,
which was a shame, because the mussels were cute, and plump
with verve and flavour; medium-sized ones really are more
juicy. The curry spices were discreetly managed; the whole
thing was robust but creamy.
I had the Catalan morcilla-sausage salad (£8.50),
and if, even with your eyes wide open, you would have identified
it thusly, and not as 'black pudding’, I’d have
given you a million pounds. Ach, so what if they went to
Spain for a pig product they could have sourced to perfection
in Kent – the tableau was beautiful. The green beans
and leaves glistened in an understated dressing, the half
a boiled egg made the prettiest centrepiece and, considering
their earthy nature, both the sausage and some shards of
field mushroom were very cleanly presented. Ha, inconsequential,
you say! Who cares what a mushroom looks like? I tell you
for why, it makes you feel like there’s someone paying
close attention in the kitchen. Even in places where the
food is tasty that feeling is surprisingly rare.
My Provençal fish stew (£15) lived up to this,
from the heights of its posh razor clam right down to its
nubby new potatoes. It was classic fish soup with a twist,
all redolent fennel and Frenchness, with manageable hunks
of all the right fish (monkfish, prawns, the above-lauded
clam). J’s calves liver (£13) was a bit more
of a mixed bag; the treacle-cured bacon was smashing, the
cheesy polenta was strange and smashing, but the cut of
liver itself was too thick, we both thought, leaving the
pink middle treading a perilous line between delicately
mousseline and icky.
Everything was well within the tolerance of 'excellent’
until we got to the puddings, which screeched into mediocrity.
J had a warm chocolate pudding with chantilly cream (£5.50),
which didn’t have a millimetre of yield. I mean, I’m
not asking it to have a molten centre; it didn’t advertise
one (though that would have been much nicer). But this was
as dry as a bone. The taste wasn’t great and the experience
of trying to scrape it off the bottom of an ungreased bowl
was dispiriting. I had the baked egg custard with blackberry
compote and green-apple sorbet (£5.50), which was
much better (though without malicious intent on their part
it couldn’t have been worse). Still, the custard was
strangely tasteless, like set cream, and while the compote
was fine and the sorbet OK, the whole thing didn’t
hang together and it certainly didn’t intoxicate.
Which I believe is meant to be the point of puds; I mean,
it’s not as if anyone’s still hungry.
Counterintuitively, I wouldn’t let this put you off.
You could be wrong-footed by the style of this place into
thinking you were in just another no-problems, by-numbers
gastropub, but in fact it is more than that – thoughtful,
careful, upmarket cooking. I don’t think I care if
no one here has a sweet tooth. Probably one day refined
sugar will be like cigarettes.
See The Telegraph website for the full review at: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/
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