Baker Street's Moore not merrier

This review was published in April 2002

You have to admire waiting staff who can solemnly present wine, water and starters to the backdrop of a raucous conversation about goat-shagging without raising so much as an eyebrow. The sole waiter/ maitre d'/greeter at the newly-opened Michael Moore had admirable sang-froid going for him; sadly, he was also over-fussy, over-familiar and prone to my particular bugbear: that of calling us 'laydeez' at any given opportunity. His mixture of over-confidence and lack of professionalism was in fact a paradigm for the whole operation.

The look is fairly upmarket - expensive chairs and napery - but there are odd, amateurish orange daubs on the wall. The menu is ambitious but the execution is often flawed: pea soup with smoked salmon had an over-abundance of cream and a lack of seasoning. A spring onion risotto with scallops and squid, however, was a successfully melting, correctly al dente dish; and deep-fried crab ravioli with devilled soya were packed with crab and punchy flavours.

A fillet of steak with tomato bearnaise featured an excellent piece of meat, luxurious and sparky sauce but was swamped by an unnecessary poached egg atop. Pan-fried monkfish with pesto, rocket and chard showed what the kitchen - Michael Moore, one presumed - could do with a great piece of fish sympathetically prepared but, as an assembly, was hardly rocket science (ho, ho). Mostly good, but a bit of calming down all round would make for a more pleasurable experience.