Meaty restaurant is great for pigging out

Gordon Ramsay, Tom Aikens and Gary Rhodes all call their restaurants after themselves - but that's because they're Gordon, Tom and Gary, innit? Tom Ilic has been simmering away on the City scene for years (Bonds, Addendum), but is that reputation enough to get bums on seats in rainy Battersea? It would seem so.

By 8.30pm this large, hectically staffed space was packed with groups of youngish punters, dressed the more casual end of smart - and they weren't here for the decor. With magnolia walls, yukka plants and the kind of floor tiles whose allure could only have been "doesn't show the dirt", this restaurant was so featureless you could imagine wandering in and forgetting why you came.

The implicit promise is that the main event is the food. And when I say "food" I mean meat. And when I say "meat" I mean pork. Such is Tom Ilic's love of it he even has a cartoon oinker on his logo. No surprise then that my starter - two plump braised pig's cheeks pillowed with lip-smacking chorizo and snuggled in sinfully creamy garlic mash (£5.50) - was superbly moreish and worryingly filling. As my friend's starter - nutty sauteed calf sweetbreads with a too-stolid oxtail ravioli (£6.75) - confirmed, this was not going to be a light meal.

Ilic is a master of the winter warmer: slow-cooked meats with richly reduced sauces. Even my deliberately "lighter" main - scallops with Jerusalem artichokes and hazelnuts (£13.50) came with, you've guessed it, pig: a frustratingly dry honey roast pork belly that failed to combine convincingly with the dish's other disparate elements.

My friend found her slow-cooked beef with roasted bone marrow and garlic bread (£12.95) "slightly dry but lovely". Ditto our shared (and happily pork-free) dark chocolate fondant pud (£4.50).

So why is Tom Ilic so popular? Butchly cooked twists on "proper" British food, great to booze to, at low prices. And that's something worth putting your stamp on.

Tom Ilic
Queenstown Road, London, SW8 3RH