Under the High Line, one of the seven wonders of New York City, where peace and tranquility mix with rare greenery on a former raised platform railway converted to a unique public park, lies a restaurant of some repute.  A place that, although set amongst meatpacking factories, has thoughtfully empathised with, and even beaten a path for other trendy venues to raise the Standard of this eponymously named district of New York City.  And yet a “Grill” that has remarkably few items on the menu that might ever see a char broiler.   For example, I had oysters followed by shrimp fettuccini.  Although I use the word ‘followed’ in a loose literal sense, or perhaps as its own antonym since the main courses arrived before the starters. This was one of a number of service fiascos we experienced when lunching there on the last day of a New York trip.

The wine served was a very acceptable Sancerre with a whoosh of gooseberry, and citrussy notes.  But it wasn’t the one we ordered.

Fred, who has an allergy to tomatoes, ordered the Chicken Paillard with rocket, without the little red beasts.  On first delivery this simple request was complied with.   However when the second delivery was attempted (just after the starter plates were eventually cleared), red mist in Fred’s eyes matched the colour of the salad.

Despite the service issues, I have to say I still liked the place very much.   Table 12 is a dangerously cosy booth that you should ask for if you are a twosome or a ménage a trois.  The vibe is very New York Village bistro and I saw numerous lookalikes from Sex and the City.  The prices are remarkably reasonable, especially the wine list which has many bottles in the 30 something range, where most higher end NYC pads start at 50 plus and quickly accelerate away from the mere common man.

Of course I didn’t, but I could have easily kept the lunch bill for two to less than $100 including tax and service and wine.  At this price, Standard Grill compares itself to village bistros like The Smith, rather than high end dining places like Scalini Fedeli, to name two places we sampled on the same trip, and this is a good position to take.

Whilst I complained about the quality of service, I only refer to the execution.   Visually pulchritudinous from interior design to eating irons, smart male servers wore plaid waist coats and young female waitresses had matching skirts with schoolgirl style long socks.  Add a decent stab at a macchiato and a handful of good dessert wines, and it makes for a very pleasant place to while away an afternoon.

And if you eat too much, a quick stroll along the oasis of calm bustle that is the High Line will work it off.

The Standard Grill
848 Washington St at 13th St,
Meatpacking District
10014
New York
T: +1 212 645 4100
W:  http://thestandardgrill.com/

Fixed price dinner is £70 a head and the wine markups are more scary than climbing across Swirral Edge in the snow, fog and fading daylight.  But like Helvellyn, Sharrow Bay watches majestically over Ullswater with a haughty, assured and almost arrogant posture that asks “are you man enough?”

As I munched on a glorious amuse-bouche of poached salmon, I wondered if the producers of The Trip excluded this place on grounds of budget, or if Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon merely got turned away for not being serious enough.

The menu is at the posh end of fine dining and the service is at the discreet end of stuffy, but mixed with a good dose of northern friendliness.  Our waiter, Jeeves, took so much trouble to explain the history of the building (fisherman’s cottage expanded over centuries by nobility) that I imagine some other punters got cold fish and warm red wine.

The sommelier is a nutter, though.  Disapproving violently with my endeavours to find value on the wine list (£46 Château Musar -White “barking mad, sir”) in favour of a Sancerre that, surprise surprise, was a bit, but not excessively more expensive.  He was probably right that it was a better choice for my mostly fish based 7 course dinner.  The good news for Sharrow Bay is that it is hard to find the retail price online so maybe it is fairly exclusive.  The bad news is that the Ritz lists it at £62, and nobody marks up wine like the Ritz…well, except, it seems, Sharrow Bay who ask £67 for this tame but moderately tasty bottle.  Very drinkable, but you should take neither price as an accurate indication of the wine’s value.

From a choice of several grand nooks, we dined in the former Billiard Room which, through an ornate panelled ceiling, there still existed a light, I mean the architectural term.  A glazed hole in the ceiling, designed to illuminate the green baize.  Presumably Victorian billiards was a daylight sport.

We ate on white tablecloths this time, and enjoyed a menu that demonstrated confident simplicity combined with quality ingredients and, surprisingly, for a meal with so many courses, northern sized portions.  I only managed cheese and dessert thanks to the relaxed service which made dinner longer than John Holmes but more enjoyable (for me at any rate).

With time to people watch, earwig, soak up the history and pass remarks about the staff at the same time as enjoy their company, this would have been an easier review to write had I not (a) complied with the no phones at the table rule; and (b) got so drunk that I couldn’t read the menu.  Fortunately I stole a copy to look at later.

The sort of food you can expect to find at Sharrow Bay would be a starter of roasted quail breast with truffle fettuccine and wild mushroom sauce.  Or a sautéed scallop, thyme fondant potato and shallot purée.  A second course of plaice on pea risotto.  A simple but stonking sorbet followed by a main of Sea Bass, parsnip purée, wild mushroom fricasée and lemon grass sauce.  Or meat feasters could order Tournedos of Scottish fillet steak, roasted shallots, braised ox cheek, marinated cherry tomatoes and red wine sauce.  Or Best end of Herdwick Lamb, wild mushrooms, artichokes, broad beans, dauphinoise potato and white wine and rosemary sauce.  Or noisette of local venison with ravioli of girolles & spinach, butternut squash purée, braised sherry lentils and brandy and port sauce.  Not for the faint hearted!  But now you are nodding off.

I couldn’t really fault any of my dishes in presentation, taste or portion size.  However, the next course was a demonstration of everything that’s good about England.  It is getting gloriously ever more difficult to find French fromages (yawn) on top end menus in my experience.  Les anglais have more varieties.  YES!

The Nutter disagreed with my choice of a glass of Muscat de Beaumes de Venise with the English cheese and brought me a free glass of something dark as his recommendation.  I finally found a little recognition from him, after pronouncing it a Pedro Ximenez before it even reached my nose.

Whilst I preferred the Muscat with the Stinking Bishop, I had to agree that Pedro rode a donkey through the warm chocolate and ginger pudding with vanilla ice cream.  A rare wine match for rich chocolate.

The bill for two including alcohol and service was a snooker shy of £250 which is, I believe, the most that has ever left my wallet for a single meal, and yes, I have been to Galvin @ Windows.  Which leaves the tricky question, is it worth the money?  I think for an occasional treat, maybe a 50th wedding anniversary for example (where you would also be amongst the average age of the diners, only adding to your pleasure), it’s one of those places where even mere Muggles should visit at least once.

Sharrow Bay
Lake Ullswater
Cumbria, CA10 2LZ
T: +44 (0) 1768 486301
E:  info@sharrowbay.co.uk
W: www.sharrowbay.co.uk

The menu is simple and, dare I say, looks almost cheap.  Six oysters start at £8.  You can pay more than that at the market.  My grilled fish of the day (at market price) was three sardines.  The waitress advised me the market price was £7.50.  Turns out that was not the market price, but the price to me…

Now, call me a heathen, but I like my oysters with shallot vinegar, lemon AND (thank God they had it) my favourite green Tabasco.  It’s a little milder and makes them look like proper snot.  I don’t really know what to say about oysters.  I love them and, occasionally, they make me ill.  The texture really matters as much as the flavour which I invariably obscure with the above condiments.  It is best if they are shucked to the point where spare shards of shell don’t find their way into the gaps between my teeth, like tonight.  But there is also something mysterious about oysters that make them so appealing.  Café Anglais managed to add that je ne sais quoi sauce, and as it turned out, I will be fine tomorrow (this post written in the multi-tense style of a flashback-ridden thriller).

An acceptable glass of Picpoul de Pinet came with the first course.  I switched to Sauvignon Blanc for the Sardines.  It lacked a bit of zing, unlike the fish which was nicely charred and served on a plate so hot that it could probably have fried an egg, or baked a pizza.

The sardines came with a beautifully fresh pesto and I added a green salad which was well, but subtly dressed, like Jamie Redknapp….not.

The bill for one with two glasses of wine and a bottle of sparkling water came to about £36 including 12.5% service.  That feels like great value for the capital, and not only is the food good, but the oyster bar is especially welcoming to solo diners.  So next time you are on your Jack Jones in Bayswater or Notting Hill, I’d give it a go…or write to me at:

Oyster Bar
Le Café Anglais
8 Porchester Gardens
London W2 4DB
T:  020 7221 1415
E:  info@lecafeanglais.co.uk
W:  www.lecafeanglais.co.uk

My first course was Asparagus salad, dainty and tasty with a Dijon dressing that rivals my own.

My second, Hanger steak (chef, Alfred Portale’s own cut) was tender like fillet, tasty like rump, marbled like ribeye and portion sized for Twiggy.

A Saumur, at only $31, was recommended with the Prix Fixé anniversary lunch menu.  The cheapest wine I could find on the main list was $40 and there were few that were not into three or even four figures.  I drank a bit of Saumur in France this Spring.  Always served chilled in Parisian bistros, this one was at “cellar” which turned out to be about 18 degrees C, not quite warm enough to assassinate the fresh flavours.  I think 12-14 would have been better.  A 2006 made from 100% Cabernet Franc, it tasted of smoky, barbecued banana and pineapple, but evolved to a tangy fruity beetrooty light-hearted, but far from frivolous, lunch wine.

It is interesting to observe the differences in US labelling laws from Europe, and you can bet that the currently voluntary “consume responsibly” advice will very soon be turned into a legal obligation by our overbearing UK nanny state.

The Prix Fixé anniversary lunch is exceptional value at $25 (can you guess the anniversary being celebrated?) and the three courses = less than a single entrée at most similar quality places.  A decent steak plate can cost $50 or more in this city of contrasts (plus 20% service and maybe a little veg, that is more than the cost of eating your way through the entire menu at McDonalds).

The average family wage across all five boroughs of New York City is about $53,000 before taxes.  On Manhattan alone, it is about double that, but take into account that there are some extremely wealthy bastards around, you don’t need to imagine that there is also abundant poverty by American standards.  Just take a subway out to the farther reaches of the Bronx for example.  Fortunately, the super- rich provide some level of safety net via their taxes, so whilst the average price of an apartment on Manhattan is $1.6M, one in seven of New Yorkers live in social housing with government support (not much of which is amongst the downtown skyscrapers).

NY restos typically have a number of big round tables.  In London, square tables are pushed together for larger groups in a ruthlessly efficient use of space.  Yet on this island where a few square feet of open land will cost you more than Madoff made off with, Americans seem to value more eating in groups of 4, 6, 8 or even 10 around a space incontinent circle.  I was almost hoping to find our regular party of two allocated the last huge table where we could have sat opposite like Lord and Lady of the manor with a servant each.  But the current economic conditions deem that there is generally space for all and in our various NYC dining forays we were never promoted beyond an, albeit generously proportioned, twosome table.

I am not sure if the other diners were looking at my casual attire and wondering which cat had dragged me into their fine establishment, but I was watching them, and interesting characters they were too.  We had the real Cruella de Ville on the right hand table, and Abe Lincoln on the left.  Both enjoying arguably the best value meal in Manhattan and both investing their loose change in wine from the posh list.  It was the only place in New York where I felt under-dressed.  A Mallen streak, or a Brookes Bros cravat might have got me a better table.

I was delighted that my cousin, Sarah, who is a local, joined us for coffee.  Her current project is a book on death – readers of this blog might find her recently published book, Moveable Feasts a more relevant read!

What possessed me to stray from my normal dessert wine for a Blandy’s 10 year Malmsey NV Madeira?  Adventuwous Spiwit, Centuwion!  Toffee and parkin and bonfire night matched choc cake dessert and macchiato in a choca mocha meets the Fockers explosion.

The bill for two, including a bottle of wine, glass of Madeira, and a cheeky Armagnac I managed to squeeze in, came to $152 plus service, or £107 in “real” money.  In midtown Manhattan this really is loose change for such quality.  As Monica might have said, “that was a fair mouthful”.

Gotham Bar & Grill,
12 East 12th Street, New York 10003.
T:  +1 (212) 620-4020
W:  www.gothambarandgrill.com

Cafe de Luna, on boulevard de Clichy is a bustling bistro that caught my eye on a cheeky weekend visit.  We were staying round the corner in the ninth and needed a reasonably priced dinner.  That is a challenge at the moment for Brits in Paris due to the parity of Euro/Sterling.

I started with Bourgogne escargots in garlic and mopped up every last morceau!  Eating snails is always a bit like chewing on rolled up condoms but it is the sauce that makes the strange texture so appealing.

Rumsteack pavé avec béarnais was saignant as ordered and juicy match for the wine.  The steak was a thick pavement slab cut part way in half horizontally and splayed – served legs akimbo as if imitating one of the local business ladies.

Our waiter was patient enough to speak both French and English and was chatty and friendly.  You couldn’t believe you were so close to a (sex) tourist area, just down la rue from the Moulin Rouge (which was way too expensive to deserve a visit at >EUR150 per head for dinner and show).

The wine, by the way, was 2007 Saumur Champigny Les Armore’s.  Baked custard and apple and blackcurrant.  Tastes superb and served chilled just right at about 12 degrees.. Fruity and very light tannins.  Saumur appears regularly on Parisian wine lists – it seems the inhabitants of Ile de France have excellent taste, although they are backward in other areas.  The internet has clearly not caught on as a place to advertise your restaurant and Luna has no website.

Nonetheless, this place is trés sympa and good value!  I would return…

Café de Luna, 122, boulevard de Clichy – 75018 Paris.
T:  +33 1 55 06 18 84

Surly waiters, slow service, cool greeting but then again, I am English.  The interior design is more welcoming fortunately, and pleasingly eclectic for a chain resto. There is a library, a games room, a drawing room, a study and a hallway. It is a bit like taking  part in a living version of Cluedo and I suspected it was Reverend  Green wot did it in the kitchen with the lead pipe.  Poor Mrs White….

Paris in the Spring eh?  Seemed to rain a lot, except the day I visited the Champs Elysées.

Back at Clément, Saumur Champigny 2007 La Paulate at EUR 18.50 was the 2nd time I had tried Saumur in Paris.  Raspberries and barbecued banana with Maltesers. A lovely light red for summer meals and served chilled as should be.  Good price too being only £237.60 at today’s exchange rate.

My starter was snails served in their shells on a baked potato with six carefully carved mini bowls looking like craters on Clanger Moon that I am sure the Soup Dragon would have been only too willing to fill.  Not sure if I was supposed to eat the tatty, I decided to pretend I was on the Atkins to avoid looking ignorant.

Magret de canard was excellent. Perfectly pink “à point” juicy and with a mustard sauce that saved the ropey salad dressing.

Sabayon de fruits de saison was a soft warm custard with cold fruits and apart from the lack of dessert wines on the menu could probably not have been improved upon.

I was going to try my contradictory pick me up ‘n’ put me down of coffee and Armagnac but was too tired on this occasion. The bill was presented at a pretty reasonable EUR 75 and this included a 15% service charge.  Being wary of the double tipping practices of Chez Gérard I didn’t leave anything further. My French did not stretch to asking how the 15% was divided (if at all). Hopefully the French are more reasonable with their staff than certain British chains? Let’s hope so.

After the initial welcome and the strange tipping practices, I really wanted to slag the place off but truthfully the food was excellent, the wine was pretty good and the ambience was several times superior to Chez Gérard. With several restaurants in Paris I would give one a try next time you are here.

Chez Clément, 9 Place St André des arts. 75006 PARIS.
Tel: 01 56 81 32 00
W:  www.chezclement. com

Now though, it seems eggs are safe after all – hoorah!  Boiled eggs are one of my staple dishes and I eat far more than the three a week that most of the public (including me) used to think was safe.

But is there a wine that matches my eggy soldiers?  Will two bell towers stand proud to the challenge?

Not really, no.  But it is a lovely wine nonetheless.  Saint Pourçain is a rare red producing area hiding in the white dominated Loire Valley.  Les Deux Clochers 2005 came to me from the Sunday Times Wine Club.  I forget the price (just over a fiver, I think) and it appears to be out of stock now.

If you have a bottle in your cellar, I would drink it quite cool.  The smell was like mouldy raspberries, the colour strawberry juice, the flavours slightly bitter but super juicy apple, blackberry and cherry with a note of fruit salad chew.

Rubbish with eggs but great stuff on its own.

I showed up at Brasserie Blanc in Manchester only to discover that Monsieur Blanc has not visited the place in two years.  The brasserie looked unloved and was almost completely empty.  Would this be a culinary delight, or should Raymond come and close his own restaurant?

Maybe it’s the credit crunch but Chaophraya, the Thai place across the street was packed and if you can’t fill a resto on a Friday night then it ain’t gonna last for long.

Blanc has been around for a while though, and I don’t know why more people weren’t there to enjoy decent, reasonably priced food and wine, in a well designed and laid out room.

I am not a big fan of chain restaurants – usually celeb chef designed dishes cooked by YTS trainees with no care or interest in food.  Brasserie Blanc had a sort of authenticity though.  I could have been in France, except the menu was in English and the waiter was Scottish.

He served up escargots bourguignons and moules frites in response to an Eric Cantona style, and almost poetic Gallic mist that suddenly came over me when we ordered.  Both dishes were excellent.  The snails were tender soft, squidgy.  The mussels (from Loch Fyne) in a rich creamy sauce and equally squidgilicious.  What wine could bridge these two?

I spotted a Muscadet, a bit 1970s I know, but at £19.50 it looked good value.  Domaine des Dorices Muscadet Tiré sure Lie – Everywine has it for £9.65 making the markup good value at a smidgen over 100%.  As expected, made from Melon de Bourgogne grapes, but the expected melon flavours were overpowered by pear drops, rose petals, orange and pineapple.  Crisp and dry, there was a reminiscence of cold tea in the flavour.  Great match for seafood I reckon.

Le fromage is sourced from the excellent Premier Cheese.  Three french cheeses, and one local (Lancashire) in a northern sized portion.  The pick for me was a salty spicy blue Fourme d’Ambert which was a loving partner for the sweet wine.  From Minervois and with essence of papaya, mango and passion fruit, it was thick, syrupy and sexually attractive to cheese.

Service is excellent, polished and professional, and all tips go to the staff.  The bill, including aperitifs, wine, desserts, digestif (Armagnac of course, at only £3.50) and service was £92.40.  For that price you can afford to take the train from London and including taxi fares, a newspaper, in-train refreshments, and an umbrella to protect you from the incessant Manchester rain, you would still have change from a bill at any London brasserie.

Brasserie Blanc, 55 King Street (Off Chapel Walks), Manchester, M2 4LQ.
T: 0161 832 1000 F: 0161 832 1001
E: manchester@brasserieblanc.com
W: www.brasserieblanc.com

A gruff Yorkshireman with mixed ancestry by the name of Marco Pierre White clearly spotted that the single criterion for a good restaurant was to serve good food.  This is certainly a baseline, but in my view there are other criteria.  For one, there is history.  Criterion pre-dates Piccadilly Circus itself by 4 years putting a big red tick in that particular box.

Another important part of dining out is atmosphere.  Criterion does not deliver this in spades, feeling a little bit like a Blue John mine, cavernous and empty even if nicely decorated.  However, “Fay Presto” the impressive table magician did go down a storm and it is worth visiting on a Friday or Saturday to give her a tip.  I suggested that she find a new career, although Alan was more generous, dropping her a few quid.

We dined with Alan and Heidi, as we often do when in London.  We, the out-of-towners, and worse still, from the north, made the (risky) choice of restaurant.  We needn’t have worried, it was a top evening.

For me, perhaps the most important criterion to judge a resto by is the wine list.  Criterion’s was excellent, although expensive.  The rest of the table marooned me on my isolated wine snob island to choose the bottle.  I spotted a La Dame de Montrose 2004 looking reasonable value at £65.  Google found it at www.tanners-wines.co.uk for £21.95 making the mark-up about 196% – not outrageous by many resto standards, especially in London.  This St-Estèphe was earthy and spicy with a hint of tarragon, plums, and cherries.  Although young, perfect with red meat.

Firstly, Heidi and I enjoyed seared scallops with half a bottle of Pouilly-Fumé Les Berthiérs 2006 which tasted of pink grapefruit, lemon and blossom, complementary to the scallops which were simply gorgeous in a sauce vierge.

La Dame (the second wine of Château Montrose) was a perfect arranged marriage for the grilled calf’s liver (or possibly calves’ liver?) with sauce diable, and I thought I was experiencing the perfect meal.  The others, eating steak, begrudgingly admitted that my wine choice was spot on.

However, I don’t want to sound like a “aren’t policemen getting younger?” bore, but aren’t cheese portions getting smaller?  Alan and I decided to share the “assiette” de fromage, but 6.32 grams of cheese is not going to feed two growing, albeit middle-aged, chaps.  At £7.50 this was the one rip-off of the night.  In fact, if you check out the “special offers” section of the website, you might just find a blank page, like I did – virgin white like Posh Spice, and emptier than David Beckham’s head.

Otherwise, at £288.39 for four including service the overall experience is one worth repeating though not every week, unless you know the Aga Khan, or someone who can make £10 notes appear from a wine bottle.  Oh and the interior design is almost as impressive as the magic…  I’ve read some bad reviews of this place, especially when it flirted, briefly, with being branded under the Frankie’s pizza chain (a JV between MPW and Frankie Dettori).  I think it is back to its Gallic best now.  Do give it another go if you are one of the former disappointees.

Criterion Grill, 224 Piccadilly, London, W1J 9HP.
T: 020 7930 0488. F: 020 7930 8380
E: sales@whitestarline.org.uk
W: www.whitestarline.org.uk

The service at Scott’s is obviously superb, highly professional and (unusually) English.  However, our waiter was having an off day.  I had to ask three times for my wine to be topped up.  You may be thinking “lazy so and so” but I would have had to walk about 300 yards to get to my bottle of Pouilly Fumé from where they parked it.  Talking of which can you spot our car in the photo below?

No I can’t see it either.

Scott’s is on Mount Street, Mayfair where you would have to be a Russian oligarch to have any chance of affording a piece of real estate.  With Berkeley Square just round the corner, the sound of nightingales is all but deafening, although the 200 year old London Plane trees do ensure that the little blighters are well above street level.

Inside Scott’s, the decor is overtly expensive.  A huge raised display of shellfish at the Oyster Bar was enough to make my knees go weak.  Razor clams were planted in the ice as if skis outside an Alpine mountain restaurant.  A variety of other crustacea stared back at me as if I had just entered that weird bar in Star Wars.

The oysters were reassuringly ugly and all the tastier for having green tabasco available.  My main of pan fried brill was…erm…. brill, but at £24.75 I wasn’t expecting seagull food.  Crisp skinned and nicely textured, not as flaky as cod yet not as meaty as tuna.  Fred is allergic to seafood (so yes, it is mean to take her to a seafood restaurant).  Fortunately, Scott’s has anticipated this potential relationship breaker and offers a wide choice of meat and veggie dishes.

I selected a cheapish Pouilly Fumé Les Cornets 2005.  At Scott’s, cheap means £39.50.  Berry Bros have this at £12.95 which reveals a mark-up of 305% which is quite high.  The wine was greener than a spring meadow (in colour) and tasted of gooseberry, lemongrass and greengages.  Very zingy indeed and only ever so slightly too acidic which was fine for the oysters.

The cheese course came with a glass of Muscat de Beaumes de Venise Domaine de Durban 2005 – served super chilled in a frozen glass.  Certain readers would not approve of the “eye-glass” sized stemware but it suited me just fine.  With a glorious scent of honeysuckle, it tasted of heather honey and golden raspberry with just enough acidity to counter the sweetness.

As usual, on these hedonistic Sunday lunches I couldn’t order my macchiato (tasted Italian) without attacking the Armagnac list (5 available).  Just the one this time, Baron de Sigognac 10 year old, at £7.50, perhaps the most reasonably priced item on the entire menu.

The bill for two was just shy of £180 including service and (antiquated and annoying) cover charge.  It is difficult to judge but I sensed that Scott’s is one of the most expensive places I have ever eaten (including the Ivy and Le Caprice from the same group).  Despite that I encourage you to start saving now.  By the time you get a table you might have enough in the piggy bank and if you even so much as like the look of seafood you will have a great dining experience.  Whether you are a Star Wars fan or not.

Scott’s 20 Mount Street, London, W1K 2HE.
T: +44 (0)20 7495 7309 F: +44 (0)20 7647 6326
W: www.scotts-restaurant.com