Working the Marco magic

One way to view restaurants is to divide the owners into shopkeepers or restaurateurs. The shopkeepers see food as a commodity, time as money, trends as worth plundering, style as content, space as gold-dust, staff as enforcers, noise as acceleration, customers as geese - capable of laying the golden egg of profit. The restaurateurs understand all of that but realise that there is something more elemental in the activity and business of feeding and nurturing.

Some might say - and I couldn't possibly comment - that Conran is a shopkeeper, Marco Pierre White a restaurateur. The thought seemed to hover in the air at a visit to the relaunched QUO VADIS in Soho where White, shorn of his previous partners Matthew Freud and Damien Hirst, has had the wit to lure away from those other consummate restaurateurs, Jeremy King and Christopher Corbin, Fernando Peire who was a manager at one of their restaurants, The Ivy.

Marco can himself cook, or cause to have cooked, estimable food. That, I believe, is not in contention. Marco, it now turns out, can do not only interior decoration - the rooms, and the exterior, have been made quietly more seductive through darker shades and sultry sheen - but also artworks. His own paintings and assemblages, which newly decorate the historic Dean Street premises, might persuade Damien Hirst to eat his heart out - which would be an interesting, apt step forward in the area of conceptual art. What used to be lacking at Quo Vadis was the hum and brio that a desirable restaurant emanates and that is what Fernando Peire has wisely been engaged to provide.

Marco was on the premises when I visited, sitting at a table near the entrance, watching with the relaxation of a panther the comings and goings. I can't pretend I am a stranger to Mr White and my brilliant new pseudonym, which I shall not divulge, had a life of about 20 seconds. We were invited to sit down, we started talking but soon Fernando had brought menus, taken our order, figured out the best table for a restaurant reviewer to get the feel of the room and whisked us off there. Marco, the arch manipulator and former dictator, just smiled.

The revised menu at Quo Vadis delivers more surprises in moderate pricing than in the dishes, many of which are tried and true combinations and recipes also offered at White-owned Criterion, Mirabelle, Titanic and maybe even The Oak Room. However, they have a classic underpinning which differentiates them from the offthe-peg, sweatshop style of restauration and only the most blasé of diners could not find something, or indeed many things, appealing.

I tried risotto di calamari Quo Vadis, which was a revelation in richness, brilliant at the hungry start of a meal but leaving little in the way of appetite for what follows. Truffled parsley soup, with its lucky-dip find of a molten poached egg, was exquisite, just as it is at Mirabelle. Gnocchi Provencal, brought unbidden for us to try, will be my order the next time I visit Quo Vadis; the dumplings were masterly, buttery and yielding but with a palpably fried exterior set off by brittle sage leaves and sharp tomato.

Poulet noir roasted with herbs and doused in a shallot vinaigrette was an agreeably sinewy, flavourful bird but with the leg left too pink for that bit to be inviting. Grilled lobster served with chips and Béarnaise, guaranteed significantly to raise cholesterol count, was fittingly delectable. Nougatine Quo Vadis, a sort of semi-freddo, elicited the comment that the chef obviously understood the importance of temperature. English berries in red wine jelly; why does it take Marco to point out that this is a better way of rendering summer pudding? Because he is a restaurateur who realises that sogged bread is a duff ending to a meal.

There are wines sold for less than £20 but not a great deal of lusciousness therein. The New World shows best in the cheapies. The eye is drawn to the phrase "We also offer an extensive fine wine list". Soho fields a notoriously difficult kind of clientele. The punters that restaurateurs would like to see in their establishments are likely to be disporting themselves in clubs such as Groucho, The Union or Soho House. On the other side of Cambridge Circus, The Ivy has cracked the problem. It will be interesting to see if an emissary from there can work the same magic.

Quo Vadis
26-29 Dean Street, W1 6LL