All heart but no soul

Aged 11, I used to stay with my godfather, Paddy, who lived off a grotty stretch of Fulham's North End Road. Paddy bought me my first McDonald's when one of the UK's first opened near him. Walking down North End Road looking for Meum Cor brought the joy of my first Maccy Ds rushing back. In my aging pomposity, I had forgotten the colourful thrills, spills and smells of the American fast food experience.

So it is now, writing my last gastropub review. I have forgotten the thrills of fishcakes, sausage and mash, and lamb shank. Pubs, by their nature, are for local people, not restaurant ponces - you fall in love with your local for countless reasons, food alone is never enough. Setting aside the obvious soulless chain boozers, most of the pubs I visited were to some extent or another, lovely locals.

The trouble is that they were judged on West End restaurant standards. The pub has been ideologically elevated beyond the average by the gastro prefix, when clearly this is impossible. After 20 years of eating in this city, it's obvious there aren't enough good chefs to go around.

Restaurateur, publican and chef mates of mine have ongoing murders trying to find kitchen staff of a standard. London's food continues to improve, but there's still a lot of emperor's new cooking going on.

Meum Cor (Latin for my heart) is a dining room and bar with a degree of sophistication and lots of champagne, from Perrier Jouet at £35 to DP 96 at £150 and Cristal at £270.

The choice of tap beers is largely Belgian, the wines largely French (aside from one crowd-pleasing fat Aussie shiraz), and the menu is posh bar snacks with an ironic nod to the pubby old skool. Yes, they have scampi in a basket, along with burgers, goat's cheese fondant with melon and fig, and whitebait 'dans un panier' too.

The burger is pink and has a long, mature flavour, the whitebait and scampi are plump, breaded and come with a chunky tartar sauce. We also poked about with the less successful platters where you choose four elements from a list of seven. We had spunky little Cajun chicken strips, some oily, tepid roast veg, some dry, skin-on fat chips and a pile of unexciting breads.

Pudding didn't put that special wicked look of joy on any of our faces. A lemon tart was renamed yellow pie for its complete lack of flavour, let alone sweetness or sourness, and the banoffee pie was oddly bananafree and banal. The food feels apologetic here, but at least they are open til midnight.

Meum Cor
308-310 North End Road, SW6