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An awesome and ridiculous film that leaves you thrilled beyond the point of your natural endurance
2012
Theatre
The show has suddenly become quite wonderful, and the galvanising factor is the terrific stage debut of Melanie C
Blood Brothers
Music
The British pop music industry may be eating itself but if Muse are the pick of what it can offer the world in 2010 then British music is in rude health indeed
Muse
I was smitten by both Gilberts enormous luxuriant moustache and the intelligence and nuance of this highly entertaining play
I totally recommend Babbo to anyone who is looking for really good and traditional Italian food
Always been a fan but never seen them live. I was ecstatic to be part of this epic event. WOW!
London,
Fay Maschler's rating
Reader rating
Phone: 020 8878 4092
Open: Open for lunch daily noon-3pm, dinner Mon-Sat 6pm-10pm
Tous les garçons et les filles de mon age … savent bien ce que c’est d’etre heureux” sang Françoise Hardy. All the boys and girls of my age who remember this song from the days of French yé-yé music know that one way to be happy is to have a dinner that includes items such as moules marinieres, bouillabaisse with rouille and tarte au chocolat in a little local bistro where prices are kind.
Chef John McClements, who has opened nearly as many restaurants as he has had birthdays — he’s 47 — understands this well. From the opening in 1987 of McClements on Twickenham Green, where Jonathan Meades praised the “butch cooking done with taste and flair”, to the latest offering, Le Provence in Barnes (replacing another McClements enterprise called Ma Cuisine), he has thoroughly explored French bourgeois cooking and channelled the esteem in which the British hold it.
Early-years McClements espoused offal and homemade charcuterie. His contemporary style is lighter and in the case of Le Provence fittingly responsive to the warm South and its coastal repertoire. I was immediately drawn to a first course of risotto with fresh sea urchin. Its iodine content is beneficial, few kitchens seem prepared to deal with the spiky creatures and tous les garçons will be interested to know that scientists have discovered that urchins can live for 200 years with few signs of age-related disease.
Risotto is a correct Italian intrusion into the region and this one was a well made assembly, with the rice the appropriate texture and the orange roe a pungent contrast to pieces of bland white fish in the mix. Artichoke with ravigote sauce (a vinaigrette emulsion bolstered with mustard, cornichons, herbs and onions) had been filled with a dollop of fridge-cold caponata in the hollow where the choke had been. That was rather an unwelcome surprise.
Bouillabaisse was served deconstructed with the selection of fish and shellfish, a jug of potently anise-flavoured broth, croutons, rouille and grated cheese brought to the table to meet and merge. Even if not quite what you might find in Marseille, it came together in a highly satisfactory way. Gutsy braised rabbit with fennel and garlic was served with silky mash and green beans glistening in butter, an accompaniment that took me back to early visits to France in the days when restaurant food there seemed a revelation.
The same energetic elbow that had poured Pernod or Ricard into the bouillabaisse seemed to have sloshed Armagnac into the prune and Armagnac ice cream. It was heady stuff.
The black-and-white tiled premises are small and simple and benefit at the back from a glazed pitched roof framed by trees. The front area is a bar with its own menu of small dishes. A couple of paintings on the walls feature village squares shaded by plane trees typical of Provence, the sort where you should be able to find a restaurant like this one but these days probably won’t. Admirable French fidelity to their pop stars means that not only Françoise Hardy sings but also Sylvie Vartan, Mireille Mathieu and Edith Piaf.
Now that cheap and easy printing means restaurants can hand out menus that change once, or sometimes twice, daily, a laminated list — even one where a first and main course with garnish can be achieved for £20 or less — looks worryingly static and chain-like. But McClements’ bistros — there are Ma Cuisines also in Kew and Twickenham — are better described as a satisfactory formula. Every neighbourhood could benefit from one.
Details are correct at the time of publication - please check with venue before booking.
