Goodbye, ugly duckling

Menu of temptations: chef Jason Scrimshaw beneath the mirrored ceiling

Younger readers, shade your eyes. I have been working for the Evening Standard for so long that I was there when the paper's offices were in Shoe Lane, which led into Fleet Street.

Journalists then didn't actually wear green eyeshades, shove pieces of bad copy onto a spike and shout "Hold the front page" - well, I didn't - but from the Evening Standard building in those days you could hear the clatter and clanging of compositors arranging metal type for the presses. And you, young reader, feel hard done-by because your mobile phone doesn't take pictures.

I can't remember whether many of the journalists drank at The Mucky Duck in nearby Fetter Lane. I expect they did, since many of them drank as if it were their bounden duty. Either way, the separation of Fleet Street from the newspaper industry is now complete - a line has been drawn - with the transformation of The Mucky Duck into a gastropub called The White Swan.

With a chef in charge who worked at Bibendum and Chez Bruce, in terms of food, this really is the story of The Ugly Duckling growing up into a graceful swan. Remember Danny Kaye singing the song based on the Hans Christian Andersen story? No, of course you don't.

The new owners, the Martin brothers, Tom and Ed, also responsible for The Well in Clerkenwell, have plans to open two more gastropubs this year, one in Dalston, the other on the Thames opposite Canary Wharf. Their revamp of The White Swan's ground-floor bar has been done with an eye to the fact that a lot of people still like pubby pubs with real ales and rough textures. The blackboard menu of bar snacks could well stop you in your tracks as you head upstairs towards the restaurant and away from loud noise.

En route you pass a mezzanine level overlooking the pub - a nice corner for chatting - and a wall panelled with bevelled mirrors, before reaching the dining room. The ceiling there is covered with more mirrors. My friend Joanna said she liked looking up into them because it gave her an out-of-body experience.

Jason Scrimshaw's modern European menu is stuffed with temptation and on top of it come six specials of the day. From that page I was tempted by a first course of Fillet au poivre "Rabbit" with Béarnaise risotto. "Why the inverted commas round rabbit?", I asked the waitress. She replied that it meant it was rabbit. This seemed disturbingly post-modern European but it was a brilliant dish of cubes of white meat topped with cracked black pepper at sea in a creamy risotto flavoured with exactly the right amount of tarragon.

Crab vinaigrette, another special, was perfectly dressed. Joanna said her cream of watercress soup was salty (I didn't think so) but it was exactly the texture she always hoped she would achieve when she made it at home. She also praised the roasted guinea fowl for having a crisp golden skin yet a blush of pink to the flesh and she loved the foie gras dressing.

Roast partridge with celeriac mash, foie gras and caramelised apple was dispatched with great pleasure. A disappointment was my somewhat weedy choice of Moroccan aubergine with almonds and yoghurt dressing as a main course. It lacked the voluptuousness that aubergines can deliver.

Spotted Dick with brown sugar and butter was an option among the desserts, but so was chocolate soup with beetroot yoghurt ice cream (Oh, Heston, what have you done?). I couldn't find a taker among my companions. Crème brulée was perfect, the sugar crust flirtatiously resistant to the spoon. Crisp crème patt (sic) with poached apple and apple sorbet was a crumbed and fried disc of cream with apple garnishes; nice but not amazing.

The wine list is a serious booklet that requires a budget with more brio than the eminently reasonable food prices imply. I mean to go back to The White Swan to explore it and the menu in greater depth.

  • The White Swan Dining Room** 108 Fetter Lane, EC4. (020 7242 9696) Restaurant open Monday-Friday noon-3pm and 6-10pm. Two/three courses for £18/£22. A meal for two with wine, about £78 including 12.5 per cent service.

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