Go Wild for French cooking

Last year the restaurant Arbutus, which opened in Soho, picked up all kinds of awards. It was almost as if the formula of a skilled chef applying himself to a coherent menu, modest pricing and wines served in a user-friendly fashion was something no one had ever thought of before.

Anthony Demetre and Will Smith, colleagues of old, worked harmoniously in the kitchen and front-of-house respectively. If there was nit-picking about Arbutus, it tended to concentrate on the dull surroundings and jammedtogether tables.

Wild Honey, which opened last week just over a year later, is the Arbutus sibling. Chef Colin Kelly has worked with Demetre for the past five years.

The premises were previously Marco Pierre White's Drone's Club and the attractive oakpanelled interior with its booths and banquettes, clubby pools of intimacy and well-chosen art is exactly what the formula was crying out for.

The menu remains mostly loyal to French bourgeois cooking. Five of us gave it a thorough workout and hits outnumbered misses.

In the first category were a nubbly soupe au pistou with olive oil from Les Baux; fresh sheep's ricotta with watermelon, peas and pancetta; mackerel tartare with beetroot and horseradish. There was also bavette of beef with roasted bone marrow and crushed Lyonnais potatoes; shin of Limousin veal with a gratin of cavolo nero; wild honey ice cream with crushed honeycomb; Scottish raspberries covered with a sabayon and burnished under the salamander.

Less successful dishes included leeks vinaigrette shredded into a sort of salad with scant dressing; traditional corned beef which seemed to have too direct a relationship with Fray Bentos; the market fish of the day which was pallid, damp salmon.

The wine service echoes Arbutus with everything available by carafe as well as bottle. Proving that advertising executives can go on to do virtuous things, try the heady (John) Hegarty-Chamans from the Minervois, only quite gently marked-up at £27. Wild Honey is a restaurant I'll stick to.

Wild Honey
St. George Street, London, W1S 2FB