Life by the riverside

There is something privileged and exciting about dawdling by the Thames. Our river is the one snaking evidence of nature dominating man in this city - we live and work around it, rather than conquering it like every other space in town. In the summer, more than any other time, we turn to the river to release, just a little, our caged souls.

If we lived in Cornwall or even Essex, we would take walks through spore-laden fields and wave-crashed beaches. In London, we turn to riverside pubs and restaurants, and drink crisp Italian whites with long lunches. This is what summer in London is all about.

Except much of riverside London has been hijacked by developers. A loft by the Thames is a piece of prime real estate ass, so while the river is free, the space beside it is at a premium. I had been looking forward to a sunny lunchtime to review Rocket Riverside, which sits on the Thames by Putney Bridge. And when one came I rustled up a group of friends whom I thought would be very grateful to know a restaurant critic for at least one day in the year. But, oh, how disappointing it was. The restaurant sits on the ground floor of a new tall building, certainly the tallest in SW15. Our view, save that looking directly on to the river, was of hoardings advertising the space.

Everything so pristine and unimaginatively corporate.

The staff were friendly, girls mostly, but weirdly slow. I can be a tetchy diner when I have guests, and I kept hopping up and down to ask for drinks, menus and service, when I really didn't think it was necessary to do so because they weren't that busy. We had a three-year-old with us, and her parents said that the high chair provided, a sturdy wooden one, was the best they had ever seen. And here the good comments ended.

The menu is a one-size-fits-all, brunchy affair - eggs benedict, waffles, the hideous-sounding scrambled eggs with mushroom and gorgonzola, smart pizzas from a wood-fired oven, and a selection of mains which were trying to be different but which ended up sounding unappealing.

Shazzer and I both had salads - for her, the smoked chicken, crispy pancetta, mozzarella, tomato and basil; me, the fish-and-chip salad. I was curious to see what this meant, imagining fried potatoes and pieces of grilled fish on top of a tangle of interesting leaves. What I got was heavily breaded fish and pasty chips with plain rocket in an overly balsamic dressing. Quite literally, fish and chips with salad. The mint and mustard sauce it came with was made with a vinegary and - from the tired uniform look of the mint - supermarket mint sauce. It added nothing to the dish. I stole some of the three-year-old's mayo that came with her food.

Shaz said her smoked chicken tasted plain and plastic and that they had used the biggest, bitterest outside leaves of romaine. The other two had pizza, the base criminally soggy considering the pizza oven in the kitchens. Even the three-year-old looked at her fish and chips and said, I kid you not, 'It's not very good, Mummy', although she may have been picking up on the adults' grumbling.

Shaz summed it up perfectly. 'The food is like the sort you get in those smart casual restaurants you find in university towns that are staffed by pretty students.' 'Browns! Exactly,' we all agreed.

But Browns' food is better than this. 'It's like the chef has been told what to do by a board of directors, rather than creating his own menu,' said Mr Shaz. We were all disappointed and consoled ourselves with ice-cream sundaes from the kiddy menu.

These were satisfying, in a crumbled-up-bits-of-Crunchie and good-vanilla-ice-cream sort of a way, and at £3 a pop, the only thing on the menu that I would venture to recommend.

Brewhouse Street, SW15 (020-8789 7875) Lunch for two, £42