Andrew Edmunds

The restaurant ANDREW EDMUNDS ploughs a different furrow. The clientele is made up largely of regulars. They tolerate cramped seating arrangements because more important to them is the vivacity of a daily-changing, reasonably priced, healthy menu, and a wine list where the eponymous owner lets diners benefit from his canny, sometimes surprising, buying.

The assortment of wines on the supplementary list has been described by Bruce Yardley in The Evening Standard London Restaurant Guide 1996 as if it was picked up at auction following the death of a rich crank.

The same crank understands the profound pleasures to be found in sherries and dry vermouths and the frivolity of aperitifs such as Chamberyzette, offered here at £1.50 a glass.

This small Soho restaurant, lodged in a shabby early 18th century house, comes as close as anywhere to replicating the virtues of the traditional French bistro, including staff who work efficiently without intruding.

Last Monday the menu, which kicked off with roast carrot soup at £2.95, also offered some nicely coarsely textured crab cakes with a tarragon and tomato butter and a heap of well-dressed spindly salad leaves in which wild rocket predominated, and a carpaccio of beef, soft and luxurious as velvet, with a Stilton-flavoured sauce.

The main courses we tried were cocida, a Spanish stew of pork, chorizo, chick peas, potatoes and peppers to which the adjective hearty could accurately be applied and a first-rate assembly of lightly cooked swordfish with basil-roast new potatoes, saffron mayonnaise and rocket salad. The elements came together to form a well-balanced, and therefore all the more delicious, whole. At £10.50, it was the most expensive main course. We drank well and rather too much; our bill before service was just over £60 for two. It is a good idea to book well ahead.

Andrew Edmunds
46 Lexington Street, W1F 0LW