Marco scores a winner at Stamford Bridge

"The last food I had at a match was pie and Bovril," marvelled my date at Marco Pierre White's new restaurant at Chelsea Football Club. One look at the bling-a-ling Swarovski columns, the expensive leather booths, WAG-a-likes at the long bar and champagne buckets iced and ready, revealed Bovril was off the cards.

Just as well, for my ardent Villa fan was lured to Chelsea only by the promise of a three-course meal by a triple Michelin-starred chef. It was worth the betrayal.

Marco Pierre White apparently named his new restaurant after his son (although said son is named after him), but what could Marco Junior order from the very adult classic French menu?

We began with a glass of fresh, grassy sauvignon. My date's ragout of shellfish with herbs (£12.50) was sublimely fragrant with a creamy tang. My sea scallops a la croquet (£9.50) were a dream: delicate, generoussized beauties, shimmying in a pastry-crusted shell. Food here may be for businessmen who fancy themselves as players, but it's truly premier league quality: my elaborately artless Dover sole a la Nicoise with al dente saffron potatoes (£25) was the nearest thing to fish and chips.

My companion went for the macho choice: braised pig's trotter aux morilles pomme mousseline with essence de morille (£16.50). It looked gross, but he said it was soft and flavoursome: unlike his dessert, a monster, envy-inducing souffle of blackberries (£7.50) with a light texture but "too subtle": his fault, I think, not the souffle. I didn't get a glimpse of scrummy MPW himself, but my fairy-light feuillantine of fresh raspberries (£7.50) gave me something else delicious to drool over. And not a whiff of Bovril in sight. Result.

Marco
Fulham Road, London, SW6 1HS