A Brazilian twist

Ocular ennui set in when I walked into the Pilot: chalk on blackboard, salvaged wooden furniture, a white-and-burgundy colour scheme and cheap abstract art for sale. A girl gets bored of floorboards, even if the place was impeccably clean. Break out the patterned carpet.

The Pilot looked like a predictable gastropub, but its distinguishing feature was a menu that displayed some good South American twists on brasserie/ gastro classics. The kitchen staff, manageress and waiters were Brazilian and the influence of that nation was felt in every dish.

The home-made bread was made with milk, giving it a sweet, brioche, or Jamaican hard-dough, quality - enjoyable, but perhaps not ideal with olives. The Brazilian black bean soup was dark, thick, a bit bland, and garnished with its traditional accompaniment of orange. It was an honest dish, but underseasoned until tasted with some of the oily croutons lurking within, which delivered a more satisfying, salty punch.

The Other Diner, who had been treating me to his most filthy festive-season anecdotes, turned his attention to something more savoury: a salad of roast beets, red onions, Jerusalem artichoke, ovendried tomatoes and feta.

It was a good mix of substantial earthy flavours which weren't daring, but pleasing. The only bum notes: an unpeeled beet, a woolly tomato and blunt-tasting chunk of feta.

My main course was a take on salad nicoise, with a large piece of beautifully fried, rich and moist butterfish in place of the tuna, a soft-boiled egg in place of the hard, and boiled floury potatoes instead of waxy new, and a few leaves and julienned peppers mixed up with the beans. All this conspired well together. It wasn't elegant, but a wintry, hearty take on a summer classic, let down only by more of those woolly tomatoes.

Last autumn in Las Cruces, New Mexico, they made the world's largest enchilada, and the Other Diner's main wasn't far off it. He has an appetite fitting his considerable height, and still he couldn't finish it. The lamb was good quality, full-flavoured and mixed up with beans and veggies, wrapped in a soft tortilla. Some wedges of potato were golden at the edges and did a happy job of being chips.

There are bitters (Adnams and Marston's Pedigree), Belgian wheats (Leffe, Hoegaarden), Guinness, and three lagers on tap (Stella, Amstel and Staropramen). We drank no booze, this being January, and without puddings the bill was £40. This place is good value. Long may the Brazilians continue to pervert the course of dull gastropub standards.

The Pilot, W4 (020-8994 0828) Dinner for two with wine, £55