French gets butch

John McClements and Twickenham have a long history and, although the chap has stamina and is not afraid to tackle, it is not about rugby. This recently opened restaurant, which for simplicity's sake I shall henceforth refer to as La Brasserie, started out 15 years ago as McClements.

There has also been a McClements Bistro, a McClements Petit Bistro on Twickenham Green, Ma Cuisine Le Petit Bistrot, which opened two years ago at Whitton Road and spawned a branch in Kew Village, and a period a couple of years back when the restaurant McClements went in for fine dining and attracted - and then lost - a Michelin star.

Don't bother to try to keep up, because the good news is that at La Brasserie, John McClements has decided that what people really like is classic French cooking served at a reasonable price in unpretentious surroundings.

And he is absolutely right. When I see dishes on the menu such as mousseline d'homard, terrine de lapin et jambon en gelée, goujon de sole sauce bercy, tête de porc, poulet en vessie and Mont Blanc, I think about how seldom one is offered this sort of cooking which has stood the test of time and needs no rethink or, God forbid, "a twist".

McClements himself is back in the kitchen and the premises have been stripped out and refitted with a bar at the front, private dining at the back in the wine cellar, wooden floors, bare tables, black leather chairs, a strip of mirror at dado height and, where we were sitting, a selection of Jack Vettriano pictures. The professionally dressed front-of-house staff, French to a man, seem enthused by, and at one with, the new regime.

Jonathan Meades is a great fan of what he refers to as McClements's "butch" cooking. He has described with relish the dish of pork head, ie muzzle, cheek and cerebral medulla with a meaty sauce and garlicky potato purée, but I was more attracted to the first course of Parmentier de pied de cochon, sauce gribiche, which is a crisp little potato cake filled with glossy slowbraised pig's trotters. It was delicious in quite a wicked way.

Delicate, feminine mousseline d'homard was served at just the right faintly warm temperature, like a girl out of breath. It came with a strongly flavoured shellfish jus.

Cassoulet of frog's legs and snails - hard to get more basically French than that - arrived with a dome of pastry and a sauce given a kick with both tarragon and its anise-flavoured friend Pernod.

Poulet en vessie, a dish created by Fernand Point at La Pyramide, is served for two at £27. The inflated pig's bladder in which the chicken is cooked was brought to the table on a trolley and cut open to reveal and then carve the ivory-coloured bird with its accompaniment of morel mushrooms swimming in subtle juices. It is not a dish commonly served - and more's the pity.

The other main course tried, ris de veau, calf 's sweetbreads, cooked with celeriac, tarragon and Little Gem lettuces in a Sauternes sauce, was also much liked.

Soufflé chaud, needing preordering or a wait of 20 minutes, was based on rhubarb and was fantastic. Tarte Tatin served with Calvados ice-cream was comme il faut, made with apples, not some daft intruder - a favourite trick of trendy chefs. There is also lemon tart, chocolate tart, roast pineapple with cardamom caramel sauce and plateau de fromages.

The only inauthentic detail was the soundtrack, which featured both Edith Piaf 's Je Ne Regrette Rien and Serge Gainsbourg and Jane Birkin's Je T'aime, Moi Non Plus. I somehow doubt that these survive as favourite restaurant tunes in France, but in Twickenham they sounded just right. I loved them.

La Brasserie Ma Cuisine Bourgoise
2 Whitton Road, Twickenham