Restaurant review: Launceston Place

Launceston Place is all the better for having dropped the palm-wringing and prices, says Zoe Williams

I used to work for the most hateful man, who every day took his lunch at Launceston Place, and every morning would ring up and say, 'May I have table three, for two, for one?' and the maître d' would blow a gale of laughter you could hear right across the corridor. Every sodding day. Its tired old cushions and peeling beige paintwork were supposed to be a 'witty' foil to the Kensington postcode, I think - it was a faux country-house hotbed of ghastly English sycophancy, and if they'd fed me the tongues of larks who had died of exhaustion while singing my praises, I still wouldn't have been able to stomach it.

So the short version is, the revamp definitely hasn't made it worse. They have turned over the entire reception room to a giant chandelier - quite a generous act, given that the whole place is rather cramped - and they have also painted all the walls very dark brown and added glitz and velvet, like a surly adolescent with a burgeoning sense of occasion. The new chef, Tristan Welch, ex-Pétrus, only 28, has fizzed up the menu spectacularly.

It's also much better value, now, with the à la carte menu £35 for three courses, and the lunch menu only £24 for the same. P started with the spider-crab risotto, which arrived with the shell of the crab atop the dish, so that from a distance it looked roughly the size of a football. 'This is just lovely,' he kept saying, whereas I thought it was too salty and the rice was gritty, and you couldn't really taste the crab. Pressed for his honest opinion, he revealed that he was so relieved not to have to eat a starter the size of a football that goodwill had flooded his critical faculties.

My roast duck foie gras, with rhubarb compote and elderflower milk soup, was a work of such spectacular balance and smallness it was like watching one of those Russian 13-year-olds at the Olympics. The elderflower struck a very pure note after the riot of tang and richness. I was really impressed by this whole event, which I then followed with braised Shetland salmon. My good opinion held: I love it when they braise a salmon so slowly that the interior stays translucent and yet has been cooked; it totally messes with my mind, man. A shallot-and-mushroom compote on the side was a good, earthy counterpoint to all that fairytale pinkness. P had the crispy suckling pig with broccoli and Jersey Royals. The pig was wonderful, and the crackling was a work of very unusual precision, thin and dainty and delicious. He said the one thing that hadn't changed about this place was that the portions were still small. The kind of person who likes pork would want rather more of it. Still, I think if we'd finished at this point, we'd be talking a seven-out-of-ten sort of a place.

The puds, though, let things down. P had the walnut cream, banana sorbet and toffee mousse, on the basis that it sounded like a posh banoffee pie, but it was so posh it definitely didn't taste like one. The sorbet was a bit worthy. The best thing I can say about it is that the walnut cream reminded me of an excellent tiramisu I'd had somewhere else. I, meanwhile, had the chilled fruit and vegetable broth, which had so little energy - literally and figuratively - one might think oneself in diet-Mayfair, rather than gourmand-Kensington. Tiny little cubes of cucumber and fennel and grape and such… I suppose you could admire the meticulous chopping, but otherwise it was insipid.

I still say it's worth a look, but mainly if you're likely to be pleased at how unlike it used to be it now is.

Good addresses

5 North Street Winchcombe, Gloucestershire (01242 604566) Timber beams and dark polished tables give this small, crooked building an olde-worlde feel. Dine on local duck, confit and ballotine, fig and bramley-apple chutney, chestnut choucroute, caramelised swede and bittersweet sauce (three courses, £43)

Ostlers Close 25 Bonnygate, Cupar, Fife (01334 655574) Nestled in a little alleyway, this diminutive eight-table restaurant serves local produce such as roast saddle of Scottish spring lamb with Stornoway black pudding, roast vegetables and lamb stock reduction (£18.50)

One Bridge Street Kendal, Cumbria (01539 738855) A corner Georgian building with calm, cream rooms overlooking the River Kent. Try poached fillet of black bream with seared king scallops on a pea and celeriac purée (two courses, £24)