Gastro's Gallic meltdown

We're all in hock to computers. The average mobile is a more powerful piece of kit than anything a university maths department could muster in the Sixties.

Restaurants are no exception to this rule, and the whole process of taking the customers' orders, ensuring that they arrive in a steady flow at the kitchen, and then making up each individual bill, has been taken over by a computer 'system' called Remanco.

The waiter enters the order into a computer, which sends messages to the various stations in the kitchen so the chefs get the right dishes on the right plates, and in front of the right diners, at the right time. So what happens when the computer breaks down at a busy time? What happens when the waiters have to go back to scribbled notes? What happens when the kitchen gets a sheaf of orders at once? Chaos, that's what.

Gastro is an old-established, old-fashioned, 'Allo 'Allo-style, rabidly Gallic, wildly busy resto. It is also a firm local favourite. This restaurant has been successful since the days when SW4 was the postcode to move to when you started a family because the houses were both large and 'so reasonably priced'. But when the computer system takes a well-earned rest, even the best-organised restaurants find themselves impersonating a headless chook, and Gastro is no exception.

Take heart - disaster on such a massive scale is unlikely to strike again for another couple of years, but it makes a reviewer's job pretty difficult. For a start you get grumpy when kept waiting for your dinner - not a piffling 20-30-minute wait, but a chunky 90 minutes. You drink the wine before the bread arrives, and that means you're still cross but well fortified.

Gastro gets three stars because it somehow seems unfair to mark a restaurant down to one star merely because a machine has broken. The simple French food
here is surprisingly good, the service is probably fine on a good day, and the goodhumoured atmosphere is remarkably resilient in adversity.

Gastro is what the Cafe Rouge restaurant chain could have aspired to. The bar is dressed with French memorabilia and it really does feel as if you have crossed the Channel. The menu highlights a few stubborn eccentricities: 'Our bread is made from organic flour and can be purchased', 'At Gastro the chef will never cook a meat more than medium,' 'No credit or debit cards'.

But it also lists an array of classic French bistro dishes - starters include soupe de poisson, tartiflette - and it's hard to argue with a gooey mess of melted Reblochon cheese with ham and potato.

An assiette de charcuterie features good rillettes, sound terrine and a couple of thickly sliced sausages. There's also a goats' cheese salad and a warm
terrine of smoked salmon and cod.

Mains are split equally between fish and meat - you can have a very decent moules frites (good frites), or magret de canard, breadcrumbed hake, veal Marengo, andouilette (the dreaded tripe sausage), or 'boudin noir, pommes purée, sauce à la pomme' - a well-made black pud with decent mash and some slices of fried apple. The wine list is short and not very forgiving, but there are sound bottles to be had under the crucial £20 barrier.