It is a truth universally acknowledged that a Grade I-listed building, and one with a famous architect, must be in want of a good tea room. In Ealing, west London, the folk behind the recently re-loved walled kitchen garden within Pitzhanger Manor, built circa 1800, have aimed much higher than this.
Soane’s Kitchen is an elegant, bright, airy, beautifully situated space promising breakfast, brunch, lunch and dinner, all of which, the menu promises, are so seasonally sensitive and ethically sourced that one ascends spiritually to a higher plane merely by eating its beans on toast. Sorry – its homemade, bloody mary-flavoured beans on Hedone sourdough, topped with a Breckland Brown egg squeezed from the hind portions of an ecstatic Norfolk free-range chicken. In the evening, there’s the likes of tempura shrimp burger served on a squid ink-coloured bun, and gluten-free rump of Paley Farm lamb with aubergine puree for £17.50, while your new potatoes to go with that will cost an extra £3.50.
The menu, filled with labneh, focaccia crisps, beef tartare and zero-waste chimichurri, reminds me of that great Victoria Wood sketch where she takes her ancient mum to a trendy organic vegetarian cafe and the pair attempt laboriously to place their order. Wood, with her usual wit, nails just how non-inclusive these supposedly all-inclusive spaces actually are for the old, the uncool and the moderately waged.
And, in Soane’s Kitchen’s case, non-inclusive to those without a booking, because on the Sunday lunch I went there at 1pm, the place was deserted and, at the same time, under heavy demand for tables. Locals ambled in every five minutes, casting hopefully around the empty tables, looking for sustenance, only to be told that the joint was fully booked. Predictably, the room then remained relatively quiet over lunch, because essentially human beings are awful and make bookings they can be bothered to neither honour nor cancel, ruining the vibe and decimating the profits of new openings such as this across the land.
I ask for a lunch menu, and I’m delivered a tiny brunch menu. It’s 1.15pm and I’m told that lunch is off due to a mysterious power problem. I accept this as fact, inform my guest when she appears, and we pick from an A5 menu of eggs, granola and sandwiches on which the “Soane’s full English” and the fishfinger sandwich with pea puree seem the best options. As we wait, we notice other tables receiving plates from the lunch menu, at which point I realise that my guest and I have been in possession of different brunch menus anyway. Mayhem such as this, which I experience very, very often, is tricky for the critic: it comes across as petty and unsympathetic and, at worst, it loses people jobs. But here I am, nevertheless, at lunch, without lunch. I make the best of things by ordering a bloody mary from their advertised “bloody mary counter”, which I cannot see and may or may not exist, because by this stage I am very confused.
The fishfinger sandwich arrives. It is untoasted, rather dry sourdough concealing three soggy cod goujons swamped in unseasoned pea puree. Not mushy peas. No, these are garden peas shoved in a blender without seasoning. The tartare sauce tastes of very little. The full English is, of course, beautifully sourced, but a drab, sterile affair to look at, with everything placed centimetres apart. We ask for salt and pepper. Twice.
My bloody mary appears: it contains a single, quill-like leaf of fried kale. Some pleading and wrangling gets us puddings: a Celebrity MasterChef-style dense chocolate tart with soggy pastry and a roasted peach with an abrasive thyme yoghurt. “Are you enjoying the puddings?” I’m asked by two different people. I can stay silent no longer. “No, this yoghurt is completely awful,” I say as the server retracts like a threatened sea anemone. “It has much, much too much thyme in it. It needs to be subtle, almost neutral, because the peach is steeped in honey.”
“Thank you for your feedback. I will pass this on to the kitchen,” she says, sounding winded.
There are no winners in the complaining game. Stay shtum, and you’re complicit; speak up, and you’re that choppy-bobbed woman in the internet meme asking to “see the manager”. I smoothed things over by ordering a glass of cloudy, orange Baglio Bianco Ciello 2016 and drinking it enthusiastically, although, in truth, it tasted a little gravelly. The main thing is, I showed willing. I’ll go back once everything gets better.
• Soane’s Kitchen Walpole Park, Mattock Lane, London W5, 020-8579 2685. Open all week, Mon-Sat 8am-10pm (10am Sat), Sun 10am-4pm. About £30 a head for three courses à la carte; set lunch £15 for two courses, £18 for three, all plus drinks and service.
Food 4/10
Atmosphere 4/10
Service 5/10
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