Americans invade the King's Road

THE SCENE AT THE WORLD'S END
*

THE SUMMERHOUSE AT THE WORLD'S END
**

Some real American restaurants are coming to town.
A couple are due soon, others next year or, who knows, the year after that - restaurant openings are elastic. Wolfgang Puck (OK, born in Austria but he has been working in the US for nearly 40 years) is bringing his steakhouse CUT to the Dorchester Collection in Park Lane. Richard Caring, in a joint venture with Keith McNally (OK, born in Bethnal Green but made his fame as "the restaurateur who invented downtown" in New York) is opening Balthazar in Covent Garden, and before that his own Caprice Holdings is launching 34 Grosvenor Square as a steak restaurant. Hotelier André Balazs is said to be installing a version of Evening Standard Grill - a must-go-to venue in Manhattan's Meatpacking district - in a hotel he is developing in a former fire station in Marylebone.

Meanwhile, British entrepreneurs continue to visit the US and come back starry-and-stripy-eyed and open places like, well, like The Scene at the World's End. It's been happening - in my experience, anyway - since Peppermint Park popped up in Upper St Martin's Lane in 1978.

Mitchell and Meredith Tillman, owners of First Restaurant Group, have developed what was originally the World's End Distillery - but most recently The Chelsea Bar - into a three-layered venue encompassing The Cellar, The Scene and The Summerhouse. On the ground floor, the Victorian architectural detail of what is a rather wonderful red-brick building in the style described by Osbert Lancaster as "Pont Street Dutch" doesn't happily convey the intended "stylish bar and kitchen in the midst of buzzing Hollywood".

Silvered Anaglypta ceiling, shiny black tables for six or eight - but with no one seemingly needing or wanting to share - a mauve bar, moody photos of film stars, a screen showing Dr Strangelove on a loop and an open kitchen with no sign of food did not manage to distil the promised "LA hipster vibe".

Wyatt Shevloff (great name), who was the opening chef for All Star Lanes and also for the short-lived Broome & Delancey (now The Establishment) in Battersea, was not on duty at The Scene the evening we visited. Looking at the rather downbeat team behind the counter, I said to my foxy friend Kate Spicer that they looked as if they had been hired that day from Gumtree, the classified ads website. "The menu looks as if it has come from there too," she replied.

Dishes on the long list are in fact wholly appropriate to the theme but the execution of items such as "bowl o' red" (beef chilli), almost completely devoid of its Texan spicing and based on stew-like lumps of meat inexplicably topped with slices of raw tomato, Buffalo chicken wings battered rather than floured and fried with just paprika for seasoning, macaroni and cheese with no flavour of cheese and Maryland crab cakes that tasted like tuna salad filling deep-fried, didn't impress.

Best of the main courses tried was New York strip steak, which came garnished with a roasted marrowbone. The meat on Chinatown marinated baby back ribs had a flabby texture that indicated steaming as the cooking process. An alleged 12-hour lemongrass, ginger and chilli marinade made scant impact. The burgers we saw going out were high and handsome so maybe one of those - classic hamburger, £11.50 - with an upgrade to an accompaniment of Parmesan truffle fries is the best bet. On last week's showing, don't bother with dessert - for some the point of American eating. The brownie was dry, and pecan pie (pie of the day) creepily anaemic. Service was sweet but ditsy. Ice cubes in a finger bowl was a first.

The Summerhouse on the first floor, an all-weather copy of the pop-up version near The Waterway (owned by First Restaurant Group) in Little Venice, is a prettier proposition with aqua walls, blue-and-white striped banquette upholstery (specify one of these if booking), Greek fishing lights, nautical detritus and the odd starfish. It might put you in mind of Ralph Lauren's preppy look - or maybe the current advertising campaign for Marks & Spencer's Coastal Collection. The compact roof terrace alongside is worth noting.

The restaurant was doing quite good business last Wednesday and the noise level from Chelsea not-quite pensioners was excruciating. There is a mildly fishy, deeply gastropub influence to the menu which features one or two American assemblies, of which New England seafood chowder was a good example - and would have been even better if served hot.

Parfait of chicken livers and foie gras served with toasted brioche and lemony chutney was well made. Both kedgeree and salmon and smoked salmon fishcakes - "They remind me of something my mother used to make with tinned salmon," said my Canadian friend Maureen - were stodgy and pedestrian.

Bakewell tart, which we shared, was fine. The wine list is bracingly, but not inspiringly, short.

Wolfgang, Keith, André - we're waiting.

The Scene
King's Road, London, SW10 0LR