Local eats: Ditto, SW18

I met a bona fide Oxbridge educated restaurant critic on a food writers' jolly to Le Beauvallon, a relaxed but awfully pukka hotel on the other side - the tasteful side - of the bay from the cashola carnival that is St Tropez. Ben and I swilled fine wine, ate a phenomenal selection of arousing cheeses, and bonded, largely - and inappropriately, given the setting - over our love of Little Chefs. In the Eighties I used to work in the one on the A38 at Buckfastleigh, and he was a regular patron of the A50 at Uttoxeter branch (near Alton Towers).

What we love about Little Chefs is that everything is served in a meticulous, corporate, identikit way. The eggs are fried in rings, the waffles deep-fried for the precise time required to obtain a fetching golden brown. Ben loved the Jubilee pancakes with their exact oblong of ice cream and precise number of deep purple, gelatinous black cherries. The two of us don't get to eat in LCs often these days - the lighting makes me suicidal. But a LC fan never loses their love of a tidy presentation of a classic dish.

Which brings me, neatly, to a plate of seared calves liver, grain mustard mash and sauce diable at Ditto in Wandsworth, where Ben and I went for a rematch. Ditto is a smartish modern European on the natty side of Wandsworth. I'll say the words: wild boar sausage, warm goat's cheese tart, lamb shank and smoked haddock fishcake, and let you add this up to a menu with lots of unsurprising modern European classics. But, as is often the case, the kitchen had added the odd twist to dishes which work so damn well, you'd have to be a superdooper chef to improve on them. The liver was very silky, moussey and soft, a good example of itself. Why, then, monkey about with the mash, which with the addition of grain mustard was too heavy? Ditto should take a leaf out of the Little Chef gastronomique and just let recipes be.

Other dishes were a smooth gazpacho, which had the right balance of oil, tomato and garlic for me to smell that very distinctive gazpacho smell as the waiter brought it to the table. It tasted good, but for an unnecessary addition of a lump of crème fraiche. Smoked haddock fishcake with chive beurre blanc displayed perfect spud/fish balance, but not enough beurre blanc to give it a bit of fatty welly.

Foie gras and caramelised pork terrine got me terribly excited, so much so that I got the sommelier to recommend a wine to go with it. He suggested a dessert wine, a Sauternes. I readied myself for a serious ledge of foie gras to complete that decadent and classic marriage. What I got was an awful lot of pork. 'It's like looking for a seam of gold in granite,' said Ben. As pork terrines go, it wasn't bad, but where was the foie gras? The accompanying celeriac and apple rémoulade, though, was smashing. I asked for extra, and got it. The chips were very thin, like McDonald's French, aka Freedom, fries. The air conditioning was up high enough to cool them in moments.

There's fresh white napery, lots of light, interesting mixtures of art and photography on the walls and a small, but handy selection of cigars. Ordering off menu is never a problem. I liked it here, but felt that Ditto is trying too hard for the kitchen's capabilities. It's got this perfectly decent restaurant, lovely staff, the mandatory cool, white, modern interior on one side and a popular bar on the other. I met a handsome Aussie on the bus going there, and he said Ditto was a good place to pass an evening because the bar is a great place to hang out, lots of heavy leather sofas and cheap and tasty bar nibbles.

I feel somewhat sorry for Ditto because here were two food ponces spending the entire evening talking about the enigma of the roadside eaterie while dissecting their perfectly reasonable menu. The wine list is interesting - we tried glasses of a complex Israeli sauvignon blanc, and their house white and red are both dead quaffable. Ben had a blinding and well-priced Hungarian Tokay with his pud, bread-and-butter pudding made with ciabatta - pleasant, but lacking those essential over-browned bits.

This is one pudding that cannot be reduced to bland algebra - unlike Jubilee pancakes.