A fine cellar in The Loft

Town planning has never been a British strength; anything bigger than a village and we quickly lose our way. Few parts of London, though, can rival downtown Southwark for the compelling quality of its drabness, for the outstanding ugliness of its offices, for the sense that the place just happened of its own gruesomely unimaginative accord. In an especially weaselly backstreet has risen the terracotta Hotel Mercure. It looks as if it thought it was going to be sent to Cuernavaca but found itself unexpectedly unwrapped in London. Its restaurant is The Loft, glass-roofed but ground-floored, looking fresh and IKEA-like in blue, white and beech. The Muzak is very foyer and seems to drain from the hotel, while the wall photographs of flaky dried mushrooms, aorta-like tomatoes and thighs of Parmesan look straight out of central purchasing, too. Otherwise it's bright and cheery: lunching on a cloudless day at table one, we needed sunglasses for visual comfort rather than pretension.

There have to be some rewards for making your way to Lavington Street for lunch, and there are. With the menu and wine list, you'll also be given a special list entitled "Grands Vins Mercure 2000-2001". It contains 14 excellent bottles, all of which are marked up by precisely £5. There is, moreover, no service charge. Thus a 1998 Chablis Premier Cru Fourchaume from the exemplary La Chablisienne co-operative will cost you just £17, and a 1998 Pouilly-Fuissé "Le Mont de Pouilly" from Louis Jadot £18. There's a half-litre bottle (nice for lunch) of the 1998 Crozes-Hermitage "Les Jalets" from Paul Jaboulet for just £10.50, and as for the clarets ...

First things first, though. If you're on a budget, there is a £12 set menu of two courses plus a glass of a simple Vins de Pays d'Oc (from Virginie, as sold by Marks & Spencer and others). We chose dishes from the carte: tuna tataki, pickled samphire and leek shoots with wasabi sauce (£7) and baby artichokes poached in olive oil with pear, Parmesan and truffles (£6.50), followed by mustard-seed-crusted fillet of beef with watercress purée, baby onions and chips (£14.50) and slow-cooked pork belly marinated in fermented black beans with baby choy, tamarind and sweet potato wedges (£12.50). As you see, the style is Hong-Cannes.

Manager Pino Dispinseri (there is no sommelier) was nimble on his feet, efficient, and had two words to describe the wines on the special-offer list: "good" and "fantastic". It only includes three whites; the two mentioned above, plus a 1997 Alsace Riesling Grand Cru Schlossberg from Blanck (at £15.50). "I'm not a Riesling man myself," Pino told us; none the less, it was this bottle we swooped on, reasoning that it stood the best chance of the three in battling pickled-samphire-and-wasabi ferocity. It almost managed. Superb wine, actually: green-gold in colour, billowing with orchard fruits, and picking up on the soft pear flavours tucked away among the artichokes as well as foiling the meaty thud of near-raw tuna. The wine's mineral finish left our mouths tinglingly clean.

There are five fine clarets on the special-offer list: the '97 Paloumey (£15.50), the '96 Hauts de Pontet (the second wine of Pontet-Canet, £18), the '96 Larrivet-Haut-Brion (from Pessac-Léognan, £24), the '97 Croix du Casse from Pomerol (from the Clinet stable, £25) and finally the '97 third growth Kirwan, at £28.50. This wine was, Pino assured us, "fantastic", so we went for that. He wasn't far off, either: dark, smouldering with smoke and sugar and cherries, with a plain chocolate dredge to finish. Kirwan is now one of the best performers in Margaux, and 1997 (as reported in this paper) is, at the top level, a much better Bordeaux vintage than it was given early credit for. In truth, the Kirwan could have done with at least five more cellar years; it should have been decanted, and the glasses used in The Loft are disappointingly constraining, too. But this was fine, young, lusty claret, and great value at less than £30.

It hit both dishes exactly where they wanted. The steak (served with an elegant pagoda of chips, the watercress purée vivid with lime juice, jalape - o and garlic) was good; the pork belly was better. This looked like a gleamingly meaty little tarte Tatin, which then fell apart gratifyingly over delicious tiny, yet firm, choy leaves and slices of pale green, crisp chow-chow (as the kitchen called it - unreferenced in my Davidson) and polentaesque sweet potato. There was no declaration of hostilities between the claret and the black bean-tamarind gunge, but, instead, a hands-across-the-ocean harmony. By then pud seemed superfluous, and even Lavington Street looked a little better as we staggered off into the afternoon fug.

The Loft, 17 Lavington Street, London SE1 (0207 902 0800)