In need of company

Hot town, summer in the city, back of my neck gettin' dirty and gritty. Been down, isn't it a pity ..." The Lovin' Spoonful - that wonderful Californian sounding group composed in part of Jewish guys from New York - didn't go on to sing "that all the streets are smelly and shitty", but they might have done had they been writing from London.

Last week in Exmouth Market - a half-heartedly pedestrianised street - there were tables and chairs outside the restaurants but no one using them because the air was foetid. Sacks of stinking rubbish were strewn about and sad, comatose people occupied the doorways of shops locked up with metal grilles.

In Ladbroke Grove, near the Tube station, muck, graffiti and a faint (actually, not so faint) air of menace made walking towards CAFETERIA no pleasure at all.

Why is London such a mess? Never mind being next to godliness, cleanliness promotes common decency, respect for others and the environment. Cities such as Paris manage to have clean, washed streets - Paris even has a beach - and maybe they are not suffering so keenly this year from a lack of visitors.

I realise that it is the councils, not the mayor, who have command of street cleaning, but surely a Ken Livingstone campaign for a sweeter London would make a difference. And a nice change from hounding motorists.

The relatively few customers in Cafeteria on the evening we visited might well be due to the restaurant's grimy location. Belgo Zuid, its predecessor on the site, was not long for this world.

The menu devised by John Torode, a partner in the business, offers most that the human frame requires, from granola and huevos rancheros for breakfast, to oysters and eggs Benedict for brunch, to crab-and-ginger ravioli and peppered duck breast with parsnip cake for lunch or dinner, plus salads, sandwiches and Portobello Market specials of the day which include meat loaf and Sloppy Joe - mince on toast. There is a cocktail bar and a good wine list.

The dishes we tried, sent out from the open kitchen at one side of the cavernous premises, were competently prepared, although a baddie among the Irish rock oysters rather spoiled that plateful. Salt-and-pepper squid is a favourite of Torode's and the Cafeteria chef did it well enough. The garnish of mixed salad leaves was unnecessary.

A price of £11.50 seems hefty for the Big Boy Burger but it is 10 ounces of meat and comes with Gloucester Old Spot bacon, English Cheddar, tomato relish, gherkin, chips, coleslaw and, of course, a bun. It was a deluxe patty made of noticeably superior meat, but why do so few restaurants make good chips? Might it be because they buy them ready-cut and frozen?

Spiced duck salad with green papaya, a starter which I chose as a second course, might have been better in a Thai restaurant but it was all right for a cafeteria. A splendid Knickerbocker Glory outshone the walnut-and-toffee pudding which wasn't quite lush enough.