Bord'eaux

Esteemed chefs and smart hotels are a good marriage; the chef gets a top kitchen, plenty of back-up and a guaranteed stream of customers, while the hotel gets prestige from the association with a 'name' chef. Ollie Couillaud might not be a household name, but he does have an enviable reputation (gained mainly at La Trompette in Chiswick), which is now being given free rein at Bord'eaux. As the terrible pun of the brasserie's name suggests, the chef looks to the south-west of his native France for inspiration. The menu is reassuringly traditional, with snails, fish soup, terrines, and a large selection of crustacea. There is also good attention to detail, starting with tip-top breads and butter to complimentary little servings of rillettes (potted pork shreds in fat) to spread on the aforementioned bread. The Landes region inspired the salad of duck breast with a perfectly poached egg, and also the foie gras terrine. Not all dishes are south-western - salt cod brandade with marinated peppers and a saffron-tinted sauce owes more to Spain than the Aquitaine coast, but it didn't seem out of place. Retro dishes are appearing on lots of London menus this year, and Bord'eaux is just the place to finish a meal with baked Alaska, a '70s dish of frozen ice-cream encased in a hot meringue case. We liked the cooking, but on our visit this cavernous room needed a lot more customers to fill the place and give it some buzz. The waiters fussed over us in the way that waiters do when they don't have enough custom - and not even the elaborately contrived interior, evocative of continental brasseries, could give it the jolly feel it needs to realise its potential as a true destination restaurant. This is the fate of many hotel restaurants in Park Lane - patronised by travel-weary guests, but not by demob-happy Londoners.

http://www.timeout.com/london/restaurants/12529.html