It’s an open secret among restaurant critics that we – every bit as much as other hacks, with normal BMIs and a healthy lack of interest in lactic fermentation – like a scoop. Or, failing that (and with magazine lead times and the yelping maw of the internet, it’s an increasingly rare privilege), at the very least a bit of a story. We’re all, what’s new? What’s hot? What’s happening, baybee?
Me, too. Then I clock comments under a piece I wrote on cult internet dishes – dishes designed to appeal to the new, social-meeja-savvy breed of restaurant-goer – and see howl after howl of disenfranchised pain from people who appear to find the 21st century food fan as evil a construct as a banker pal of Pol Pot’s. And, because I’m accommodating, I resolve to review somewhere everyone will love. Somewhere that takes reservations. With cocktails devoid of sipping vinegars, nothing but round white crockery, and a distinct lack of anything fashioned from pig’s blood or muntjac.
To find such a pillar of delicious conventionality, where to look? Why, another restaurant critic, of course. And not just any restaurant critic, but the uncrowned king of our breed, the baboon-murdering, genius wordsmith. Famously cutting, he likes the place, so here I am at Chelsea’s posh the Cross Keys, shimmering with happy anticipation. Look at the lovely refurb of this ancient boozer, all Provence-meets-Dalston; feel the buttery, liver-coloured leather banquettes; swoon at the staff, with their well-bred hair and pinky signets.
But I’ve been led up the ancestral driveway. With the exception of the meal’s bookends – good, airy focaccia-style bread and desserts (a fashionable chocolate bar, all ganache and crisp and peanuts, and idiot-proof lemon syllabub) – there isn’t anything that’s wholly successful. And there’s a lot that’s genuinely wrong.
We’re still bright-eyed with the arrival of pleasingly acerbic soused mackerel with a whole soap opera of supporting cast: boiled purple potatoes, sections of satsuma, monk’s beard and whipped St Maure goat’s cheese. But alarm bells are set off by a veal tonnato, delivered with a “Watch out, the plate is very hot”. This classic Italian combination of thinly sliced roast veal in a tuna-laced mayonnaise is always served cold. Always. To serve it hot isn’t a tweak or twist, it’s a solecism – and one that does the dish no favours. The veal has collapsed into greyish mush, its mayo split into vomity curds. It is topped with cheese shavings, frilly fried red onion and the odd mouth-puckering burst from tiny, pickled mousseron mushrooms. But all this gussying can’t save the thing: it’s genuinely bloody awful.
Also poor is turbot, that prince among fish, reduced here to a leathery, overcooked and minuscule prole, with Jersey Royals, mussels and (undetectable) champagne. There’s an OK lamb rump dish, padded out with quantities of hummus spiked with preserved lemon, broad beans and roast sweet potatoes, as though someone’s sneakily added meat to something from a vegan collective in Hove. With chips (“Aspen fries”: fine, in truffle oil and parmesan as is the cliche) and broccoli (its hollandaise and toasted almond topping disguising a sodden bottom), our meal costs £160 for two. And, no, we don’t drink ourselves into a stupor.
I don’t know how I manage to have such a dramatically different meal from the monkey murderer. Perhaps the chef (recruited from the entirely excellent Medlar nearby) has moved on. Perhaps the baboon butcher was overcome by the “famous Scotch eggs”. Or perhaps he just needs to get out of Chelsea more often.
And it turns out that the Cross Keys has quite a lot of story: patronised over the years by everyone from Agatha Christie to the Rolling Stones, it’s one of Chelsea’s oldest pubs. It was abandoned for a while, under threat of conversion by developers into residences for the super-rich, only to be reprieved at the last moment after petitions from the likes of Zac Goldsmith and Piers Morgan (now there’s a conflicting sentence). While shuttered, squatters moved in; a polite band, leaving notices on the doors introducing themselves, and promising a gallery space and the serving of Sunday lunch. On the strength of our meal, I have a strong suspicion that I would have enjoyed that a whole lot more.
• The Cross Keys 1 Lawrence Street, London SW3, 020- 7351 0686. Open all week, noon-midnight (10.30am Sat & Sun; 11pm close Sun). About £32 a head, plus drinks and service.
Food 5/10
Atmosphere 6/10
Value for money 4/10
