A taste of Southern fries

While he was over from Africa, I took a friend to my favourite greasy spoon. For years afterwards, he raved about dipping chips in a fried yolk. One man's greasy spoon is another man's international cuisine.

When I was in Nashville a few years ago I was taken to Arnold's, which is a cheap canteen famous for its Southern home cooking. Everyone watched and waited for me to thrill to the over-cooked slop with a brain-achingly sweet iced tea on the side.

I couldn't. It is unfair to compare the Deep South cooking at Ashbell's to the Tennessee slop at Arnold's, but it is, for someone unfamiliar with the cuisine of the Deep South, the same, but very different.

The chef, the eponymous Ashbell, has taken the food of his native North Carolina - grits, corn bread, barbecued beans, hash - lightened it up, and served it in a modern style. Ashbell is to poor, Southern, rural folks' food what Anthony Worrall Thompson was to poor Mediterranean folks' food in the Eighties. Smartening it up, and selling it on, with a wine list, to a rich urban clientele. The interior, by a New York set designer, is an esoteric mix of African textiles, faux ostrich and croc leather banquettes, some fabulous and original Art Deco curtains and carpet taken from Radio City Music Hall, a gold painting of Josephine Baker, and sumptuous and betassled soft furnishings - a mix you could describe as Afrodecobaroquefrican. It did not surprise me to hear from the formal yet sanguine staff that this is Ashbell's 'dream restaurant'. Ashbell himself is something like the late Barry White, deep-voiced, large of frame and supremely confident.

I went with brother William and his TV producer associate, who does impressive things with cameras on rigging for yacht racing. We agreed that one thing is certain: London has never seen anything like Ashbell's before (although I subsequently heard that Ashbell did the cafe at the Serpentine last summer).

The bread basket contained some sweet, cakey cornbread and what the Americans call biscuit and we would call a light, soft scone. Curious, we shared our starters - ginger sage sausage with a hot chilli jelly, some dry meatballs with a fresh, hot tang, Maryland soft shell crabs which resembled deep fried tarantula and were lush, juicy and wonderful. BBQ beans were, I thought, an odd starter - the chilli kick was powerful, the sweet vinegar taste and assorted textures were more akin to a moist chutney than what we consider beans.

For mains we tried spiced smoked tomato and onion hash over creamy grits. The hash (a tomato sauce really) tasted strongly of aniseed, which with the metallic tomatoes was quite a challenging taste. I had cornmeal crusted talapia (a freshwater fish), which was good'n'moist under its tasty coating, with a light, moreish coleslaw which used savoy cabbage, and some BBQ beans. A good dish, but I would have preferred something less obtrusive than the beans. The grits were repeated with the smoked duck breast, slices of home-smoked duck arranged on a milky pool of cornmeal porridge made with buttercream. Think porridge crossed with a pomme puree, with a mild corn flavour.

'This is five star prison food,' said Yachtie, the high-wire camera genius. 'And I don't mean that in a detrimental way. I'm enjoying it.' Brother wasn't as sure. 'The food doesn't match the decor. This is simple, reviving, hick food. The interior is splendid and grand.' We started analysing our dining experience like a trio of kindergarten intellectuals, then my brother said, 'Perhaps we should let our buds do the talking.' Was it a tasty experience? Yes, but revving up these simple recipes to gastro levels left something of the earthiness out of the dishes without adding sufficient elan to warrant the posho prices. I will return to enjoy the interior, the deceptively powerful peach martinis, the pure and simple novelty of the place. I am fascinated to see if Ashbell's has the staying power of Barry White's music, or of his flesh.

Ashbell's
29 All Saints Road, W11 1HE