Entrecôte
Café de Paris
Entrecôte Café de
Paris, 3a Baker Street, London W1
There's
no pleasing restaurant critics -
last week I was moaning about a delightful
looking Spanish restaurant in Surrey
that was like stepping into Andalusia,
but the menu was so long and detailed
that nearly all the tapas was either
deep-fried or microwaved or both.
The food was so ordinary I didn't
waste time writing about it. This
week I lunched at the Entrecôte
Café de Paris, the new-ish London
manifestation of its famous forbears
in Geneva and Paris. Here we have
the opposite extreme, as there is
no choice at all, or barely, since
you are allowed to specify
how you'd like your entrecote steak
cooked. Of the two extremes I preferred
the minimalist, though I
wondered how a vegetarian member
of a group of friends would fare.
I was reassured that there is always
a pasta dish available, so veggies
can get their just desserts (where
there is a choice, as you will find
out).
The
restaurant itself is pretty and very
French retro, a little too grand
for a bistrot, not quite lavish enough
for a pukka brasserie. The menu concept
is what the French call a formule:
a single starter, steak frites, and
a dessert. After specifying
the cooking of your steak, a simple
green salad is brought to the table
(mostly iceberg lettuce) then after
a short pause out comes the steak
on a metal chafing dish in its sauce,
the dish is then placed on a small
spirit burner. Thus you can watch
as it goes from rare, to medium to
well done, before your very eyes.
A generous portion of exceedingly
good matchstick fries is already
on your plate, and the staff come
by every two minutes with anxious
cries of is everything alright? and, would
you like more fries?
The
steak is from Charolais beef cattle,
and it was cooked perfectly, exactly
as each of us had requested, not
an impossibly hard task since there
was only one other table occupied.
The sauce is the thing, and I quote: "It
is the special butter and herb
sauce that marks out the Entrecôte
Café de Paris from its modern day
rivals, having been made from a
secret family recipe passed down
the generations since the 1930s".
It's a bit of fun for everyone
to guess the secret ingredients,
and at least it makes people pause
and taste, rather as you listen
to music as opposed to merely hearing
it. I thought I could detect some
Roquefort, others suggest anchovies,
but one ingredient was obvious,
the butter which had separated
from its undercover secret agents.
When I asked the waitress if the
sauce was supposed to have split
like this, she confirmed that this
was how it was; I was not convinced
of its correct passage down the
generations.
For
dessert, there is a profligacy
of traditional offerings with no
fewer than nine to choose from!
My friend opted for the fruit salad
which was satisfactory. I tried
the tarte tatin. The apples tasted
good, but the pastry was as soggy
as a wet sponge. I like my tatin
crisp, and since it's cooked upside
down, there's really no excuse.
I wondered what the profiteroles
were like, or the crème brûlée,
neither of which are good the next
day.
The
wine list is also brief, in both
length and description. Before
parting with £55, I'd like to know
more about the Chateauneuf-du-Pape
than it comes from the Rhone Valley.
Perhaps they think the English
neither know nor care? However,
the basic formule is sound,
and apparently the Parisians queue
around the block for it. So, I was
wondering if Baker Street was the
right place for a French restaurant,
then remembered how brilliantly Galvin is
doing. Attention to detail is the
name of the game, and with so few
details to address, it shouldn't
be hard to get it right.
Green
salad, entrecote steak and unlimited
frites £16.95, desserts £5.50,
wines from £12.50
Clifford
Mould April 2006
Entrecôte
Café de Paris, 3a/3b Baker Street,
London W1U 8EE
T: 020 7935 3030 email: mail@entrecote.co.uk
W: www.entrecote.co.uk
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