La Chassagnette: so pretty but more misses than hits

Given that I plastered photographs of La Chassagnette all over my instagram feed the other day you might think a review was superfluous but the truth is that pretty plates do not necessarily a great restaurant make.

A bit of history. We first went to La Chassagnette 10 years ago when we started visiting nearby Arles for the annual photographic exhibition. (Quick parental plug: Our youngest son is a photographer.) We were absolutely dazzled by it - the location in a wild garden in the middle of the Camargue, the crazily inventive food from chef Jean Luc Rabanel, now at L’Atelier du Jean-Luc Rabanel in the city centre. I remember exquisitely pretty salads, a lit grill being brought to the table with tiny sardines on it. It was, as the French, say ludique (playful) - fresh, original and charming. We went once or twice more before Rabanel moved on.

Although his replacement Armand Amal has a Michein star we never got round to going back - until the other day and i must say I couldn’t wait.

The meal started well enough. In good weather you sit outside overlooking the garden in the beautiful dappled light of a vine-covered terrace. A plate arrived covered with a crisp socca (chickpea pancake). Underneath were some slivers of very good ham and a spicy chickpea purée. We winced slightly at the 90€ cost of the menu découverte - the only fixed price option on offer but given the starters were 19€ and the main courses 38-43€ it seemed the only way to go.

Beautiful colourful dishes started arriving. A brilliant flamingo-coloured red pepper gazpacho … but what’s this? Rocket purée and grapes? That doesn’t really work. Nor does red mullet, a strong-tasting fish that needs robust spicing, paired with blackberries. Or a plate of pickled carrots topped with a raw ‘gravlax’ of ‘taureau’. I know bull is a local ingredient but that’s definitely not the best way to serve it. We couldn’t taste much of the presumably home-grown carrots either.

“Who’s having the sole?” demanded our charmless waitress. Well you tell us. It’s supposed to be a surprise menu and we were told we had to order the same thing. It arrived in an heavily-saffroned broth perched on some fibrous yellow courgettes. Some ‘eau de tomate’ was poured over to little effect - again you couldn’t taste the sole. My very rare tuna, partnered with aubergines was much better as was a dish of lovely fresh coco beans and squid with a haricot bean purée. And a simply gorgeous dessert of sheeps milk yoghurt blancmange (more like a cheesecake) with figs and tonka bean ice-cream. Hurrah for the pastry chef!

We had problems with the drinks order too. I thought I ordered a sake flight - clever idea to offer rice wine in the Camargue - but got to dish 4 before I realised I hadn’t been given the next pairing so said I’d have a glass of wine instead. Could we have the list back? The sommelier arrived with two glasses he’d picked for us ‘to go with the food’ - a 1985 Roussillon white and a heavily oaked red both from Domaine Vaquer. We tried them. They didn’t. The red was too oaky for the tuna and the white was oxidised. The sommelier said it wasn’t. Finally we got a bit stroppy and they replaced them with wines of our choice (a decent if slightly bland Provence rosé and a Kreydenweiss Costières de Nîmes). Much irritation all round. (And no, it wasn’t a language problem. My husband speaks fluent French)

Maybe the chef - and the maitre’D - were on holiday but it all seemed a bit lacking in focus with neither the sure-footed cooking or the smoothly purring service you’d expect from a Michelin-starred restaurant. And, even given the glorious setting, expensive. If we hadn’t drunk relatively modestly we could have easily been looking at a bill of 300€ (£221) instead of the 211€ (£155) they charged us. Which seems pricey for a mainly vegetable-based menu put together from ingredients that are on the restaurant’s doorstep.

Although La Chassagnette is in the Camargue it seems to have more than a touch of Provencitis - in other words it’s succumbed to the temptation to play to a wealthy international clientele (there was only one party of French on the day we were there). As my husband said “They’re not as good as they were and they’re not as good as they think they are.” Sadly - despite the pretty pictures - I agree.

La Chassagnette, Route du Sambuc, 13200 Arles. Tel: 04 90 97 26 96

Islington lucks out with Oldroyd

We got two important things right on our first visit to Oldroyd. We went before most of the reviews came out and there were four of us which gave us an excuse to try practically everything on the menu.

I don’t know why, in this age of small plates, one doesn’t always do that. Probably because it’s difficult to find three similarly food-obsessed dining companions who are free on the same night but it’s one of the advantages of being around in high summer when there’s not much else on.

Oldroyd, in case you haven’t been feverishly scanning the food press, is the eagerly awaited solo venture from chef Tom Oldroyd who used to head up the kitchens at Polpo. It’s hard on the face of it to see why he would want to abandon the comforts of executive chefdom with someone else worrying about the money and most evenings off for a tiny 28 seater in Islington where he’ll have to be there all the time but I guess he has more freedom to cook the sort of food he wants. Which is basically Polpo plus. Big flavours, delivered with real flair.

Everything we ate - and as I pointed out we ate practically EVERYTHING bar the Cornish seaweed and cider salami and peach and cow curd panzanella which didn't sound entirely convincing - was good, the sort of dishes that make you feel you immediately need to go back to eat them again or recreate them at home. (Inspired by the paella which came topped with chargrilled squid, rabbit confit and a generous dollop of aioli I have a pile of Spanish cookbooks next to me as I write.)

There were some great meatballs - unusually lamb rather than pork or veal made with almonds and served with a creamy, gently spiced romesco, a steaming pot of clams with chilli chorizo and thyme (and butter I would guess from the richness of the sauce), a cured rather than raw veal tonnato which added a deliciously smoky dimension to this Italian classic, a special of red prawns and a gorgeous plate of spicy crab tagliarini ‘provençal’ (not sure why?) in a pool of brown crab rouille that makes you wonder why restaurants don't serve pasta with a sauce on the side more often. The most expensive of those dishes - the paella - was only £11 and definitely a racion rather than a tapa size portion

Oh, and we kicked off with a few summery radishes, imaginately served with smoked cods roe (aka tarama) and some perfectly fried smoked pork belly and pea croquetas with truffle mayonnaise (Oldroyd clearly loves mayo in all its forms). Unsurprisingly we were defeated by the time we got to pud but there was chocolate mousse with salted pistachio praline and raspberries and stone fruit and brioche pain perdu on offer in case you’re wondering.

The only slight disappointment was the very short wine list but I guess there’s no room in this shoebox-sized restaurant for wine. That said, both the bottles we chose - a Chateau d’Astros rosé and a Bodegas Ponce Bobal were fine though on a warm evening the Bobal could have done with being chilled. And decanted. (Which to do first? We went for decanting then shamelessly ordered ice-cubes to drop in the wine*. Our very sweet waiter didn’t turn a hair.) Cocktails - including an on-trend Oldroyd vermouth - look rather more interesting.

The quality of ingredients and cooking were so good and our bill at £40 a head (including service) so reasonable that it’s hard to see how Oldroyd is going to make enough money out of his venture. Maybe it’s a prototype for a bigger restaurant to come. Let’s hope so. Get your booking in quick, anyway. With three friends, of course ...

Oldroyd is at 344 Upper Street, Islington London N1 0PD. Tel: 020 8617 9010 (Nearest tube, Angel)

*Quick way to cool wine if you've already decanted it. Drop in 2-3 ice cubes into your glass, stir then remove them.

Taberna do Mercado, Spitalfields, London

The hype that accompanies almost every new restaurant launch these days is crazy. We all swarm in, pronounce it the best opening this year then swarm off to the next hotspot.

No restaurant is perfect in the first few days, even one run by that luminous talent Nuno Mendes formerly of Viajante, now of Taberna do Mercado in Spitalfields which he’s combining with his day job as executive chef of the fashionable Chiltern Firehouse, a fact that’s bound to stretch his team in the first few weeks especially when a large party descends from a neighbouring wine fair.

Nuno is proudly Portuguese and this gives him a chance to explore some of his country’s great rustic food traditions but also - being Nuno - to innovate To say that his food occasionally oversteps the mark is like complaining that Delia Smith’s recipes are too reliable. Of course it does

What have I got in mind? Well the abade de Priscos a silky - no, go on, I’ll say it - slimey egg pudding made with pork fat and served with a port sauce is actually rather horrid. Turns out it’s a traditional dish from Braga and one of the 21 wonders of Portuguese gastronomy but to be honest I’d rather have a custard tart. And I’m not wild about the Tigelada, a slightly leaden milk pudding either. Clearly Portuguese desserts don’t do it for me.

I also wasn’t convinced about the chicory and pear and almond salad that arrived with a spicy chilli sauce (masa di pimentao) that overwhelmed the other ingredients or an over-crunchy carrot escabeche.

But the highlights were dazzling. The widely instagrammed (including by me) cuttlefish and pigs trotters coentrada is just insanely good, an umami bomb of a surf and turf dish that I could easily have made a meal of. (I might have to order two next time.) Runner bean fritters (below), a pretty tempura-like tangle of crisp vegetables makes the perfect snack while you’re debating what else to eat and the prawn rissois (or croquetas as they’d be called in Spain) are the biz.

I also loved the idea of the ‘tinned fish’ which are apparently cooked sous vide but cutely arrive in tins with an accompanying sauce, some very good toasted bread and pickled radishes. We had the daily special, some outrageously fat mussels with a wild garlic sauce which were fantastic.

Wild garlic also appeared in a dish of migas (breadcrumbs) with asparagus and fennel so there’s more than a nod to seasonal ingredients - appropriate to the restaurant’s market location. I thought it tasted nicer when it was lukewarm than hot - as is the way with these small plates restaurants, dishes all arrive at once. (Tip: don’t order more than two or three at a time if you don’t want to be in and out within the hour.)

We spotted some other dishes arriving at neighbouring tables. The sandwiches (beef prego with prawn paste and wild garlic, pork bifana, yeast mayo and fennel) sounded and looked particularly tempting and judging by the silky coils of ham that were sailing past, the cured meat section is also worth exploring. As is the all-Portuguese wine list, much of which is available by the glass. I loved both my sparkling Campolargo Bairrada rosé (great with the trotter dish) and intensely flavoured Antonio Lopes Air Vinho Verde - still remarkably fresh for a 2011 vintage. The charming staff are well-informed about both the menu and the list.

So I’ll definitely be back and you should definitely go, though maybe in few weeks once it's had a chance to get into its stride. And once the fuss has died down though given it’s Nuno and one of the city’s only Portuguese restaurants I’m not hopeful that will happen any time soon.

Taberna do Mercado is at 107b Commercial Street which is just inside the entrance to Old Spitalfields market. It’s open every day but only takes bookings at lunchtime (and is relatively small so you may face a wait to get in) and serves a restricted menu in the afternoon. Go early (like 6pm) as we did. Our bill came to £86.29 including 4 glasses of wine which is way more than you need to pay if you’re not as curious or greedy as we were

Auberge de Combes: a real taste of the Languedoc

Over the past few years we’ve become so disillusioned with restaurants in the Languedoc that we almost invariably end up eating at home.

That included the Auberge de Combes - a small family-run inn up in the mountains above Lamalou-les-bains with fabulous views over the surrounding countryside. When we discovered it 4 or 5 years ago we loved the food but were shocked when we checked the menu one day to find that the new generation had taken over and that it seemed to be in the grip of molecular gastronomy.

Happily Bonano fils has decided to move on and although there are still copies of Ferran Adria’s cookbooks in the dining room they’re not influencing the food which is firmly back in the hands of papa. In fact they’ve moved boldly in quite a different direction introducing a natural wine bar and largely natural wine list which may make some customers as apoplectic as I am about smears, drizzles and foams

Cleverly they’re keeping their options open. There is still a bit of fancy presentation and exotic flavours such as the cod with coconut milk, ginger and lemongrass on my fixed price La Balade du Chef menu but you can also order good old-fashioned dishes such as a fall-apart tender daube of Charolais beef and hearty plate of country ham with cep butter, two generous specials from the blackboard which could easily have fed the two of us even if we hadn’t ordered anything else.

My 32€ (£22.90) four course menu included a Spanish-style ‘amuse’ of 3 different tapas, two generous slices of homemade terrine, a main which included 4 quail breasts (below), a whole goats cheese, a miniaturized gateau St Honoré (a choux puff filled with crème patisserie and drizzled with caramel) and some petits fours. We badly needed our post-lunch walk to recover.

My husband being a natural wine nut we drank a couple of glasses of a local ‘pet nat’ (petillant naturel from Domaine Rimbert) and two more from one of the more hard core offerings from the list - a deliciously funky red called Les Temps de Cerises from a local producer called Axel Prufer which they solicitously offered to decant for us then rebottled so we could could take the remainder home. But they do have less scary wines if that puts you off. A few more wines by the glass would be welcome given the restaurant’s location.

The only other quibble I have with the place is that the service is a bit slow and distracted. Despite the fact that there were only 10 other people there it took us almost half an hour to get a glass of wine and about 40 minutes for our first course to arrive. I imagine it could be worse at weekends and in the summer when there are also outside tables though maybe they take on extra staff at those times.

That aside it’s perfect - a restaurant that really reflects the Languedoc and there are far too few of those these days.

The Auberge de Combes is at 24240 Combes by the D180 from Poujols. Tel: 04 67 95 66 55. Our bill came to €126 (£90.22) but you could easily spend less. There’s a 25€ lunch menu that includes a glass of wine. (It has a Michelin Bib Gourmand.)