Eat, drink and be merry in WC2

This review was first published in December 2000

Once upon a time there was a louche little spot known as the Mars Bar just off the main Covent Garden drag where many people of my vintage spent lost weekends (or at the very least, several lost hours). It has now undergone a transformation: gone is the deadly industrial staircase that turned climbing floors into an extreme sport; gone, also, are the scenes of chaos. Instead, there's a relatively sedate new bar and restaurant, Bibo Cibo - pronounced 'beebo seebo' and (very loose) Latin for 'I drink I eat'. As owner Martin Swindon comments: 'I wouldn't have spent £150,000 on a refit if I'd wanted nothing but wild parties.' Shame.

Although Swindon currently works as Head of Group Operations for the Breakfast Group - the innovative company behind such London trendsettermagnets as Denim, Saint and Jerusalem - Bibo Cibo is a solo venture. Here the emphasis is on high-quality, low-cost dining in comfortable, quirky surroundings.

So confident is he of its potential that, although it has barely started trading, he's already started building another one in Holborn, ten times the size of its sibling.

Is this hubris? On the evidence of our visit, no. Designer Shaun Clarkson has wrought an intriguing environment from flock wallpaper (yes, really - although it was sadly onedimensional, lacking that true nostalgia of velour), leather booths, lampshaded chandeliers that wouldn't look out of place in a Highland tea-room and - to complete the strangely Scottish references - antlers. It all gives it the air of a high street tandoori in Auchtermuchtie. Just in case we don't get the irony, there are walls composed of light boxes, simply shrieking modernity. I could have quite happily lived without these and missed the ironic point completely.

At £9.95 for two courses and £12.95 for three, the menu really delivers on the low-cost promise; we even had an excellent Pouilly Fume for £17. It also displays that increasingly popular back-to-basics ethic: prawn cocktails are becoming commonplace in the capital's cutting edge establishments and, true to form, a perfectly serviceable version puts in an appearance here - generous, correctly sauced and resisting the temptation to replace shredded iceberg with more au courant leaves.

So seductive is this down-home approach that my date and I quarrelled over the main course and ended up with the same dish: flawlessly roasted chicken with solid little stuffing balls seemingly perfumed with Paxo, a giant selection of veg including roast and mashed potatoes, porridgey bread sauce and jugs of great gravy. We could have had cottage pie, or roast lamb with mint sauce and, iconoclastically, Yorkshire pudding; or even a mixed grill.

We demolished a light and crumbly apple, raisin and cinnamon pie swamped in custard, which was delicious, though slightly lumpy - such authenticity. Service was laconic but welcoming; they provided us with complimentary mini corn-on-the-cob (I know, forgive me. But even the most rarefied palate has its idiosyncrasies.) and willingly turned down the fierce heating.

I reckon Bibo Cibo has got its intelligent act together: keenly priced comfort food and cosy surroundings, the antidote to all the hard edges, unyielding surfaces and complex fusion foods that characterise so many fashionable restaurants. For those of us suffering from post-millennial angst, it offers the (too?) warm embrace of the nursery.

Bibo Cibo
59 Endell Street, WC2H 9AJ