Kerpow! A gastro-explosion

In the spring of 2003, new owners took over the Rose And Crown, a small, un-prepossessing pub on Highgate High Street. Sensibly enough they traded until the autumn without changing a thing while they assessed the property and laid their plans. Then kerpow! the Rose And Crown became the RC, the newest glimmer in the gastropub firmament. There's a small cocktail-orientated bar in front and a 30-seat dining room on a higher level to the rear. The tables are on the small side, but service is slick and all looks well, in a standard gastropubby sort of way.

Thereafter it's difficult to pin a label on the RC - the contradictions stem from the cooking and the way the menu is written. Taking the menu first, if you offer four mains and veggie options it cannot be wise to include three dishes made with cheese: breast of chicken stuffed with Cornish Brie; Aberdeen Angus beef steak haché topped with Jarlsberg; Welsh rarebit-baked cod. Grand if you like cheese. If so, you'd probably opt for the Mrs Bell's blue-cheese-and-aubergine tartlette to start with, and the selection of British cheeses afterwards.

The standard of cooking is good - the steak haché is cooked suitably pink (if a little under-seasoned), a starter salad of chicken livers and black pudding is well handled, the cod is also perfectly cooked. There is a good cook here, but he has a penchant for 're-inventing' classic dishes - 'saffron garlic Dauphinoise potatoes' comes as a soup bowl full of a rich cream sauce with small cubes of potato swimming through it, like a hot potato salad. If you spot a small, regal Frenchman spinning in his grave, this dish may be the cause. This is not how you make Dauphinoise potatoes, and if your tastebuds are geared for the traditional unctuous wedge of creamy, garlicky, finely sliced spud then disappointment will surely follow. As when you order bread-and-butter pudding and get something insipid, over-sweet and crowned with dates and out-of-season strawberries and raspberries.

The RC's short-menu approach is admirable. You have to admire the kitchen's technique, the sensible wine list, the friendly service, and the set menu at £8.95 for two courses and £11.95 for three courses. But the menu needs work.

Rose & Crown
Highgate High Street, London, N6 5HX