Eatery misses its first service

This review was first published in November 2001.

Even making allowances for the fact we visited The Clerkenwell Dining Room And Bar on its opening night, the staff's shortcomings were hard to overlook. They were a curious mixture of cringing solicitude - Heep-ish in its exaggeration - and positive ineptitude. I would guess this is down to the fact the owners were very much in evidence on the shop floor.

I was never in the site's previous incarnations as Stephen Bull or the Bierodrome, but the fact that elements of the decor don't appear to have anything to do with each other indicates a bit of a cut and paste approach.

The bar is metal, slightly antiseptic; the walls sprout orange abstracts - all very moderne. But the exterior and the corporate identity - menus, signage and the like - are deeply conservative. The whole place was overpoweringly scented by giant vases of funereal lilies.

Things didn't get off to a fabulous start when my murky-looking vodka martini arrived ungarnished. When I asked for an olive, the Manuel-like barman threaded a couple on to a cocktail stick with his fingers. But we were greatly cheered by our starters: a 'tasting plate' of Barbary duck with toasted country bread and crab cakes with red pepper remoulade.

The former was a symphony to the fowl: moist, correctly fatty rillettes on deliciously nutty and vinegary fine beans, a perfect little slab of pressed foie gras and some smoked breast on top of sliced, poached peach served with jammy, pungent onion marmalade. The crab cakes were great; light and crispy on the outside, moist and crabby - without that slightly nauseating unctuousness you often get with hot crab - inside.

That was as good as it got, however: main courses seriously needed to pull their socks up. Roast suckling pig was flabby and anaemic, the crackling chewy, the meat sparse and the accompanying white beans treated to industrial quantities of salt and undercooked garlic. Braised short ribs of beef with horseradish and wild mushrooms delivered a knuckle of meat like a lamb shank, overcooked into dry stringiness.

Blueberry financier pudding was like an evolved bread-and-butter with extra fruit and a suggestion of almonds, pleasant and unremarkable. Our barman had been drafted in to help in the dining room (the place was remarkably packed for a first day of business); he served my English and French cheeses.

'What am I getting here?' I asked. His perturbation was palpable. 'Cheese?' he suggested, stabbing hopefully in the dark. The proper staff weren't much more help, describing a round goat's cheese finished with ash as Pont L'Eveque - a square, rinded cows' milk number. Having said all this, it might well have been, since, like everything else, it tasted largely of funereal lily flower arrangement.

As we left, having paid the usual 50-ish quid a head, the eager-to-please maitre d' struck again, brandishing our coats. I - and most people I know under 75 - hate being helped into clothing: it makes you look awkward and, when you can't find the sleeve, bloody silly.

The Clerkenwell Dining Room and Bar
69-73 St John Street, EC1M 4AN