Is this new venture a friend or foe?

The formula of classic French bistro dishes sagely priced proved popular and in 2004 they opened La Buvette in Richmond.

A couple of months ago the third outlet in the group - now called Les Amis de Brula - was launched. La Saveur is described as restaurant, salon de thé and bar. When I visited for lunch only a few tables were occupied but apparently evening business is brisk and Sunday lunch is packed.

The backgrounds of the owners, who first met at Westminster Catering College, means that their ventures are not simply pastiches, even if the graphics and typeface of the menus might give you that idea.

Chef at La Saveur is Steve Gupta, who has come from Kensington Place, and towards the end of our lunch an impressive number of kitchen staff traipsed out through the restaurant to take their break.

"You eat à la carte," I said to my friend Dee, "I'll try the set menu." This is served at lunchtime and early evening. Its first course spécialité du chef was a salad where the ingredients of goat's cheese, pancetta (which could have been crisper), prunes and walnuts turned it into something more substantial and calorific than the word salad suggests.

Dee tried terrine de campagne - both these dishes appeared on both menus - which, that day, was fashioned from confit chicken wrapped in leeks and had a subtle, succulent quality that was rather hammered by the accompanying tapenade (chopped olives, capers, anchovies).

The fixed-menu fish of the day, described as coming with shrimps, cauliflower purée and garam masala, turned out to be skate, which I suspect took to these accoutrements less well than a chunky white fish would have done.

The à la carte dish of coquille St Jacques with creamed chicory, smoked bacon and a red wine sauce had an agreeable old-fashioned quality. Cheeses come from La Fromagerie in Marylebone, where the restaurant manager Lee Riley has also worked.

Plainly decorated, La Saveur ably fills the demands of a neighbourhood restaurant but un vrai ami de Brula might suggest that the French wine list could be a good deal more interesting and exploratory.

La Saveur
201 Upper Richmond Road West, SW14 8QT