Grannies have got it right

I like the grannies, I really do," said Oliver Peyton, whom I ran into at the recently opened National Dining Rooms in the Sainsbury Wing of the National Gallery. "But they order one first course with tap water," he added. Peyton has been given the job of revamping what was the National Gallery's restaurant Crivelli's Garden, named after the Paula Rego triptych which still decorates one wall.

He has brought with him his passion for indigenous recipes and noble produce - eminently fitting in the circumstances - and has involved David Collins in redesigning what is an awkward space with a definitely more desirable high-ceilinged area near the windows.

The Collins magic works yet again with parquet floor, solid, clubby furniture and daringly naked dangling light bulbs in which the filaments burn a bright orange. Chef is Jesse Dunford Wood, who was most recently working at Kensington Place with Rowley Leigh, the chap I consider the best exponent we have of unforced fine food.

Apart from on Wednesday, when the closing time is 8.30pm, lunch is the only main meal served here and I have to say I'm with the grannies when it comes to resisting something like double chop of Elwy Valley lamb with spelt (unripe wheat grain) and rosemary at £18.50.

It seems too much, in every sense, in the middle of the day in what is effectively an interpretation of a canteen. Crisp pork belly with pease pudding and scrumpy was not well enough executed to overcome the same reservation.

First courses of chicken liver mousse with home-made piccalilli and warm watercress mousse with braised button onions were much better, particularly the green hillock of wobbly watercress which was truly luscious.

And a main course of haddock and mushy peas was fish and chips up in town for the day. We didn't try desserts - all at £6.50 - but could have had orange-and-lemon posset or warm treacle tart or one of the dozen British farmhouse cheeses proudly on offer.

The section of the restaurant called The Bakery is the exciting part of the
operation. Great breads, old-fashioned cakes, tarts sweet and savoury, what used to be called "fancies" and a wide selection of teas and bottled fruits provide both sustenance and edible decoration.

Sitting among the grannies - where I felt quite at home - on a communal table, I enjoyed the home-made raised pork pie served with a good green salad, and Reg liked his fish pie.

We overheard some good conversations - "And then he said one of his legs had stopped working completely" - and sat drinking in the details like the unusually well-motivated staff, the generous pots of jams on the table and the well-chosen wines by the glass. Good old Oliver. He's given us more.

The National Dining Rooms
Trafalgar Square, London, WC2N 5DN