Gascon still has taste

It was just after it opened in 1998 and just before we got married in 1999 that I took Ann to Club Gascon for her birthday. The kitchen and the staff had then a zealot's mission to promote the confits and slabs of foie gras of south-west France. We let a holloweyed, Gitane-smoking waitress choose our food and wine: one dish - a skewer of delicate, winey duck hearts - sticks in my memory as one of the most delicious things I've ever eaten, and a bill topping £200 seemed worth every penny.

Returning with Ann's brother and his wife this week, the dining room seemed fancier than we recalled, the waiting staff more soignée and remote. There is now a tasting menu alongside the à la carte, instead of that little sparrow of a waitress. At £60 including a selection of wines, it gives a whistle-stop tour of the culinary highlights from D'Artagnan's homeland. But I missed the old sense of excitement, enthusiasm and the gustatory savour of small bird organs in excessive quantity.

The duck foie gras, for example, was a single, rich sliver accompanied by a lone crab claw and a glass of sherbety Crémant de Limoux. Perfectly judged, but gone in a flash. The preceding morsels of roast scallop and samphire were slightly overwhelmed by their sweet-pepper velouté, and, writing just 12 hours later, I find I have no memory at all of the subsequent stone bass with garden tomatoes and celery oil (clearly, the glass of Cotes de Saint-Moc was stronger than it looked). Veal-and-tuna plancha was an artful combination of crisp meat and seared fish, the tuna in particular thick and pleasantly cloying. Pudding of raspberryand-cherry gazpacho cleaned the palette, while the surprise whole nuts in the almond ice cream woke one up for the journey home.

Service was smilingly efficient to the point of briskness. This remains a great and unusual restaurant, although arguably now a little complacent in the way it has finessed Gascon cuisine into a fine-dining experience. In eight years' time I'm going again, and I'm having nothing but foie gras.

Club Gascon
West Smithfield, London, EC1A 9DS