A Nice new surprise

There was only one difference between Kate Middleton and her fellow rowers pictured in the Standard out on the Thames last week.

All were young women of a certain age and class, but one alone stood out. She made sure of that. Eschewing the bare-faced look and unflattering ponytail of her peers, Miss 'Wait' Middleton was the one with flowing hair, full make-up and cleavage. Eyecatching stuff. Miss Middleton is a professional PR, and we should never forget it.

As she knows, getting noticed is an art form. For some it's contrived; for others effortless. Rock stars do it through gimmicks - trashing hotel rooms when they're out of their heads (or pretending to be). Politicians do it and often get it wrong: David Cameron's recent trip to Rwanda in the middle of floods in his constituency was just like William Hague's baseball cap. We noticed them for their crassness. And eateries manage it by opening up another branch of an already successful enterprise. Which is why La Petite Maison - with a sister restaurant in Nice - has come to London.

The trouble with Niçoise cooking is that once people hit on a good idea they can't bring themselves to change it. Lazy fare, those with an eye for a pun might call it. I mean, that salad - does anyone still eat it? A friend who has just visited Nice says she never wants to see another deep-fried courgette flower for as long as she lives. She'd better steer clear of Brooks Mews, then: La Petite Maison is overflowing with them.

Mayfair ought to be a pretty part of town, but (particularly this summer) it lacks the great light and sunshine of the Côte d'Azur. Maybe that's why the windows of the London restaurant are made of frosted glass - because no one wants to sit looking at traffic. Or, in this case, at the rubbish waiting to be collected from the residential area nearby.

But step inside and it's like another world - cool and crisp and clean - immediately giving you the bright feel of the Mediterranean. There's a lovely big bar and you can see all the food preparation, currently fashionable, which I find oddly reassuring. At each table is a big bottle of olive oil, an entire lemon and a couple of tomatoes. They bring you bread and I think you're supposed to knock up a few do-it-yourself appetisers, but on the day I was there nobody was bothering. Which was a shame as I thought it was a nice idea.

I had taken with me a great friend, who is still the queen of diplomatic journalists - although on this occasion we were both deliciously indiscreet as no one was listening. At least we hoped not.

The food is tapas-style, which can be a bit like ordering from a Chinese takeaway: you get carried away with the greed and excitement and always order much more than you can possibly eat. This was no exception.

We had four starters between us (just reading that back now makes me feel slightly queasy): marinated peppers, French beans with foie gras (not one for the animal activists), deep-fried calamari and tuna carpaccio. All were heavenly. Next, we shared scrambled eggs with summer truffles, which made me wonder what winter truffles are like, or even whether they exist. The eggs were the perfect creamy consistency and the shavings of truffle extremely generous.

With the usual champagne rosé, the bill came to just under a hundred quid, which I thought was remarkable for such a ritzy part of town. We were surrounded by lots of affluent-looking, fortysomething men with a touch of the hedge fund about them: you can tell their gym-trained muscles will run to fat once their manic careers are over.

The service was great: but then it was waiter service. I'm probably not allowed to say this, but it seems to me that waitresses at the moment rarely have quite the same panache and attention to detail.