Mistreated mistress

Jean-Christophe Novelli isn't unfamiliar with misfortune. His smouldering features - he's always described in terms of totty, poor man - are etched with the pain of lost loves and failed businesses.

He's rarely pictured smiling, unless his dog's just unearthed a truffle in the grounds of Brocket Hall in Hertfordshire (yes, that Brocket), which contains his country gaff, Auberge Du Lac. This is where his cooking and his tortured good looks have been wowing the Tanyas and Chardonnays of this over-upholstered neck of the woods. And where he famously sent a brace of AA Guide inspectors packing 'like dogs'.

The past few days haven't been great, either. There have been reports of another girlfriend split and motoring incidents. So I don't feel particularly chipper about having to deliver a car crash of a review.

In a dismal lower floor in the Capital Club - a handsome listed building run by the same faceless leisure company which 'owns' Brocket Hall - lies Novelli In The City, his monochrome new dining room. There's very little by way of a distinguishing feature, unless you count the single, languidly spinning leg of lamb on a rotisserie surreally situated behind the bar. Our first question - was Novelli in the kitchen? - was answered with a hesitant affirmative by the tenselooking maitre d'. Cobblers. If the man himself was on site the night we visited, I'll eat... well, another meal there.

So what was so wrong? Everything, almost, with the exception of some passable - although pre-prepared - puddings. Service is inept: our waiter sloshed our wine into glasses untasted; a request for the identity of the day's British cheeses resulted in a panicked flurry of activity and the eventual response of 'roquefort and Parmesan'; a boiling hot plate had an intimate encounter with my bosom before finding the table.

And the food? At its best fair, at its worst diabolical. A squid salad managed to be bland and incoherent: the flash-grilled fish were fine, black pudding squelchily good, but there was no taste from the billed chilli or chorizo oil. Quite repulsive, however, was a flabby, flannelly 'hazelnut' pancake holding a burial mound of corpulent, muddy wild mushrooms (a 'gateau'), sticky port syrup and a stale-tasting parmesan 'crackling'. A thin disc of mi-cuit foie gras (extra £2.50) lolled pointlessly on top. I left most of this: no questions were asked.

Nor was any comment made to an almost untouched plate of four-hour oven-braised liquorice oxtail, an old Novelli favourite. This had been rendered stringy and gelatinous rather than seductively melting; over-reduction had sent any flavour of liquorice packing and replaced it with concentrated Marmite. Cauliflower mash tasted only of salt. A pre-cooked crisp of pancetta left a slick of elderly grease on the tongue. A request for the rotisserie of the day spookily left the still-rotating lamb virginally unsullied.

Double fried chips, my arse. These were frozen frites, plunged once into indifferent oil. And curry gratin dauphinoise was just misconceived, like the scrapings from a student's frying pan. It had the distinction of being the only dish to arrive hot, albeit microwaved. Normally I don't complain in restaurants I'm reviewing (well, I have other outlets), but the maitre d', unable to avoid our palpable dissatisfaction, pressed for feedback. He was cringingly apologetic: 'It's early days,' he said, 'but still, no excuse.' No adjustment was made to our £96 bill.

I hope we caught Novelli In The City on an off night. Because there's no pleasure in kicking a man when he's down. He's been quoted as saying: 'Auberge Du Lac is like my wife, but the Capital Club will be my mistress.' If that's the case, he needs to pay the poor tart a bit more attention. Or chuck her.

Novelli in The City
The Capital Club, 15 Abchurch Street, The City, EC4N 7BW