Bit of a muddle at Shambles

Teddington High Street has a certain raffish charm, as befits its catchment area of comfortable commuters. There are various restaurants from which you can choose to eat French, fish, Indian and Italian, plus an array of pastry and tea shops. And then there's Shambles.

Shambles is not at all sure what it is. At the front there's a bar/wine bar. In the mid-section they offer a bar food menu. Then at the rear there's a restaurant dining room, which occupies a sort of barn-conversion and spills out to al fresco tables.

In the restauranty bit, the menu is very long and very muddled and cuts across national boundaries in a cavalier fashion. So starters include 'taramasalata and hummous with pitta bread' (Cypriot), 'fried Camembert with cranberry sauce' (Britain in the Seventies), 'haddock smokie Florentine' (Scottish
Italian?),'scallops with parsnip purée and Shiraz dressing' (fusion excess?).

Best to turn to the extensive list of specials that adorns the front of the menu, which reveals that Shambles is actually an Italian restaurant and one that retains a good many old-faithful dishes.

Start with 'Sardinian music bread', which is known in the West End as 'Carta di Musica' - very thin, very crisp, a sort of Italian poppadum. Both soups on offer tempt: cauliflower and sorrel soup or nettle soup with marscapone.

The nettle soup is majestic if a little under-seasoned - deep viridian green, thick, tasting of freshness and iron and the blob of marscapone offering a creamy element. You can feel this soup doing you good. Or there's a dish of deep-fried courgette flowers. Or a honey-glazed, smoked duck breast sliced thinly and served on a Farro salad (a grain very like barley).

Then there's a poached duck egg with fresh peas and broad beans, Pecorino and new potatoes. This dish is nearly perfect, even though a haystack of mixed-leaf salad interferes with the new season peas and beans.

Working through the menu, the three risotti appeal: nettle and Casera cheese, asparagus, or scallops and champagne. Or there's a splendid retro dish, 'veal cutlet'. This brings a large plate covered with a ceiling tile of veal escalope.

Perfectly cooked rose veal, hammered out until about a centimetre thick, covered in breadcrumbs, Parmesan and parsley. A juicy piece of meat in a delicious crisp coat, it is served with a tomato and rocket salad and half a lemon. Trad but very good.

If you venture off the Specials into the interior of the menu you'll find a number of cross-border incidents among the main-course options, 'confit of crispy pork with Scrumpy jus and cime di rapa' (French cooking-style, English and Italian ingredients).