Abbeville Kitchen

Abbeville Kitchen is no relation to the nearby Abbeville pub, as some assume. It's a new venture from Kevin Hastings, who runs that little, year-old French bakery just down the road, called Le Petit Boulanger.

The long room - once a neighbourhood Chinese restaurant - has been stripped back and simply decorated with bare wood, the open kitchen at the very back, as is the vogue.

There's a school-of-St-John terseness to the menu - 'cauliflower and bacon soup' or 'grouse breast, Beenleigh Blue and hazelnuts'. The connection is via the Anchor & Hope pub in Waterloo, where chef Kevin McFadden spent a few months working with St John alumni Jonathon Jones.

However, other influences - France, Spain, Italy - creep in too, such as Spanish cured ham or hare lasagna.

One dish that's having a London resurgence - its appearance at Abbeville Kitchen predates it appearing on the menu at Gordon Ramsay's Bread Street Kitchen - is deep-fried pig's head. Despite the unappetising image this can conjure, the dish looks like breaded fish fingers, the threads of flesh enclosed within a crisp coating; a tartare sauce and half a lemon perk it up.

It's good to see less obvious British ingredients used to good effect, such as the pickled walnuts served with braised ox cheek, or the damsons used to flavour the ice-cream.

The term 'empañada' is so broad it covers almost anything from a Cornish pasty to delicate filled crispbreads, but at Abbeville Kitchen it's something more classically Iberian: softy, doughy pastry, delicately crimped around a chorizo and clam filling, served with a salsa, a snack any Spanish or Latin American chef would be proud of.

'Lemon meringue and raspberries' is typical of the menu's concise understatement. Far the shortcrust pastry lemon meringue pie of 1970s dinner party favourite, this was more of an Ottolenghi-style flamboyant big meringue - a fat ripple of lemon curd running through it, topped with perfectly fresh and ripe rasps.

On our visit the service varied from sweet to inattentive, but it turned out one of the waiting staff was new that shift, and apologies for forgotten orders were accepted.

As we waited, we appreciated the thoughtfully compiled wine list, which is stylistically diverse, and although not cheap, it does have good bottles for under £25.

Don't expect a Spuntino or Ducksoup in Clapham, though. This is a residential area, so if you visit at lunchtime, you'll find the restaurant has switched to a deli-style counter, with three hot dishes and three salad options; takeaway is catered for.

It's also unlikely to have queues out the door - and is all the better for that.