Restaurants

By Guy Dimond

Dark wooden furniture, eye-level mirrors running around the dado rail, Edith Piaf in the background, a waiter whose accent is so French he probably gargles with garlic - every Paris restaurant cliché was in evidence. Except, of course, new restaurants like this haven't been built in Paris since Marlon Brando was having his last tango. No, this is Twickenham au printemps, where there's a one-man French restaurant revival going on.

Restaurateur John McClements knows the terroir of the south-west, from Kew to to Twickenham, and has concluded that upmarket, Michelin-aspiring restaurants are not the way to go in the 'burbs. He should know, as he ran the starred McClements on this very site, before working out that simpler restaurants and bistros are easier to run and make a profit from. So he has dumbed down McClements into this mouthful of a place, using lessons learned from his simpler rustic bistro just two doors away.

The slightly cheaper and countryfied Ma Cuisine Le Petit Bistrot next door but one uses the same kitchen as La Brasserie, so it's no surprise that it shares some of the dishes. We ate at the Bistrot a few days previously to compare and contrast. 'You are hungry?' came the jolly Bistrot waiter's rhetorical question as he spooned out huge portions of rabbit and ham hock terrine on to a starter plate. The meat was suitably rustic, but the Chablis jelly it was set in was delicate and melted at body temperature. The same dish appears in the new Brasserie - but most of the menu is different.

It's not just the new decor that is as nostalgia-inducing as Proust's madeleines. This latest in the Ma Cuisine chain serves what they choose to call bourgeois food - slightly old-fashioned, classic dishes. McClements' fondness for offal is also quite evident in the Brasserie's menu.

Pig's trotter is served as a starter, in a slow process whereby it's boned and braised for 12 hours in port, then finely chopped, breadcrumbed and fried into a patty shape. It has an intense meaty flavour and is paired with the traditional accompaniment of sauce gribiche (a kind of mayonnaise containing capers). Riz de veau - that is, calf's sweetbreads, in this case the pancreas - is another dish you won't find on the menu at Café Rouge, but it has deliciously earthy, feral flavours once it's been blanched, skinned then caramelised in a frying pan, and served with cubes of celeriac and some braised little gem lettuce.

Only one thing felt wrong. The Parisian restaurant experience is never complete unless you emerge reeking of Gauloises - yet this is a no-smoking restaurant. For the full passive-smoking experience, you still need to make the two-and-a-half-hour journey by Eurostar from Waterloo, not the 25-minute journey to Twickenham.

Time Out London issue 1862: April 26-May 3 2006