Tom's Place is a slightly retro chippy

Ironically, the slick website for Tom’s Place, ‘the new Chelsea chippy’, displays the battered features of an old-fashioned fisherman whose days are now more numbered than the cod’s.

Tom’s Place is situated just along the road from Tom’s Kitchen and Tom Aikens: all excellent and all owned by Michelin-starred Tom. Call me perverse, but I like a little variety, and choice, and having three restaurants run by the same bloke in such close proximity always makes me feel like it’s the beginning of a cartel. Or Tesco. My guest agreed with me. He’s from America, where the individual and quirky restaurant is yet another endangered species, and it’s in danger of happening over here.

Tom’s Place is big on the environment and wastes no time (that’s good, we don’t like waste) in letting you know all about it. In fact, the inside page of the menu reads like a particularly boring political manifesto. It rails against thoughtless consumerism and bangs on about caring for the planet, but it’s all a little bit worthy and exhausting to be faced with at mealtime.

I had just returned from a cruise around the Caribbean where the fish had been so fresh and delicious that I’d been having withdrawal symptoms ever since I got back. On Tortola, I’d chosen my very own lobster from a writhing tankful and Guy had eaten a mystery fish he’d seen being speared in the clear aquamarine waters. We’d lunched under blue skies while pelicans flew around the bay and the bulk of Eddie Murphy’s yacht shimmered on the horizon.

In Tom’s Place there’s a hip downstairs bar area where you can order a takeaway, with the main seated room upstairs. For all its supposed eco friendliness, and despite lots of natural light, the room is brightly and artificially lit. There are also portholes with plasma screens behind, showing moving pictures of the sea. (Since when were plasma screens eco friendly?) TVs in restaurants are never a good idea – people find their gaze irresistibly drawn towards them no matter what’s showing.

With its red plastic chairs and bright light, it reminded my American friend of an upmarket McDonald’s. It was pretty full with grand old Chelsea ladies, several couples and Japanese tourists whom I suspect had been sent along by their posh hotels.

My guest had something called MSC-certified cod, which sounds like an infection you might pick up in a NHS hospital, but turned out to be a superb piece of (sustainable) fish in a beer batter so crispy that it tasted like tempura. The chips were excellent (9 on the chip scale) but then you’d expect them to be. He said he preferred the mushy peas you get in J Sheekey, but I told him to stop showing off. I chose langoustine (I know it as scampi), its dark brown textured crumbing contrasting perfectly with the succulent interior. It was just like one of those old telly ads (I told you the plasma screens were distracting), in which the flavour felt all ‘locked in’.

The restaurant offers daily specials – it was spider crab on the day we were there – though the gruesome scenes of the live ones being hauled over the side of the boat on the TV screens looked absolutely terrifying.

For pudding we had homemade ice cream – with lots of fresh fruit and proper cream – which tasted about as good as ice cream can possibly taste. It’s served in dinky little cardboard tubs with little wooden spoons embedded in the lids which reminded me of childhood holidays in Morecambe.

All in all, this restaurant is a perfectly good example of the right-on, slightly retro chippies that are springing up all over the plaice (sorry, place) but it isn’t original. Individuality is supposed to be the buzzword of the Noughties, so why not throw caution to the sea breeze and let it show? Chefs (don’t) unite! You have nothing to lose but your chains.