Mary Mary, far from contrary

This review was published in June 2002

When it opened, Chutney Mary was billed as an Anglo-Indian restaurant: the first in London and, so it was claimed, in the world, to serve food based on the days of the British Raj. That was back in the days when The Jewel in the Crown and A Passage to India dominated British popular culture.

These days, Chutney Mary has evolved into more of a straight-faced, gourmet Indian restaurant. And I think it is one of London's best.

The restaurant has just given its World's End location a makeover from which it has emerged looking something like a fashionable lounge bar or boutique. But the gastronomic intentions were stated loud and clear early on with the arrival of an amuse-gueule, an event I always find slightly alarming outside Michelin circles.

It was not particularly successful - a sort of mildly savoury and entirely missable yoghurt drink - but served with aplomb using asymmetric crockery. After that, dinner picked up splendidly, though the kitchen seemed to be in two minds about whether to be swanky or hearty.

My first course of alleged street food looked about as streety as a debutante's coming-out ball circa 1959. It came in a carefully constructed potato basket garnished with delicious pomegranate seeds.

But my main course, two delicious hunks of roasted cod in a saffron-tinted, yoghurt-based sauce, was excellent, and the sort of thing that requires a good appetite to do it justice. Meanwhile, a four-curry tasting platter of slow-cooked lamb (touch it and it crumbled), chicken, king prawn and aubergine was delicate in presentation and preparation, and a perfect example of, depending on your view, the range or the schizophrenia of the kitchen.

In the face of these dishes and some very good vegetables, a lacklustre bread basket was just a fleeting disappointment. We were only persuaded to have pudding by a Canadienne who wafted by rhapsodising about the dark chocolate fondant, served with orange lassi. It was exquisite, everything a chocolate pudding should be, and whoever made it should be poached by Gordon Ramsay.