Restaurants

By Susan Low

‘He’s not very original when it comes to names, is he?’ quipped a colleague. Owner Christopher Gilmour’s other restaurant is the long-standing Christopher’s in Covent Garden, which brought California-influenced cooking to London back in the early 1990s.

The two restaurants share an upscale rather middle-aged, clubby vibe, and cooking that seems designed to comfort rather than to challenge. But the menu at Gilmour’s, located next-door to Aubergine in poshest Chelsea, is decidedly more Brit than Yank.

Done up in striped wallpaper and wooden panelling, with baize green tones and white-swagged tables, Gilmour’s looks as well-padded as many of the customers’ bottoms. However, tables are placed so closely together that we could have helped ourselves to our neighbours’ wine.

Speaking of which, wine fans are well cared for here, particularly in these economically challenged times: a low mark-up on wine sold by the bottle is added, capped as a ‘service charge’ at £3.75. This effectively makes expensive wines better value than cheaper ones.

We’ve been underwhelmed by some dishes served at Christopher’s, but our fishcake starter with cockles and basil cream sauce was a tender, flavourful fishcake with half a dozen cockles in their shells and a light, foamy sauce. The thumbs-up was also given to a rare-cooked venison salad with roasted plums, walnuts and caper dressing, which showed a well-judged balance of rich, sweet and sharp flavours.

A main course of slow-roast belly of free-range Suffolk pork with mashed potato was pepped up with a fistful of peppery watercress and a bosky sloe gin gravy. It was wintry, blokey comfort food, cunningly combining ultra-crisp crackling and meltingly soft, lean meat. A touch of gaminess gave it some proper piggy grunt. After that we couldn’t find room for the likes of knickerbocker glory or lemon tart.

Opening a restaurant in an economic downturn is tricky, but if pundits’ predictions come true – that the next couple of years will be a new era for comfort dining – then Gilmour’s ought to ride out the storm.

Time Out London Issue 2011: March 5-11 2009