Neat trick misses perfection

This review was first published in June 2001

Now, call me picky, but when you're paying just a whisker under £50 a head for dinner - and that's before you've even had the smallest of sherries - it's not outrageous to expect something approaching flawless.

And when the chef responsible is Richard Neat, who, throughout his career in London and Cannes, has been garnering Michelin stars a go-go, and whom French superchef Joel Robuchon has named as his spiritual successor, your expectations are raised even further. So any of my cavils are based on the anticipation of something utterly memorable.

We chose the restaurant of Neat, newly opened in the Oxo Tower, the couture arm as opposed to the ready-to-wear brasserie - which was considerably buzzier than the formal surroundings we were in.

If it were not for the gunmetal Thames glugging past, we might have supposed ourselves in the Dubai Hilton: there's an abundance of gold - gold bar, gold shards dripping from the ceiling and stiffly luxurious furnishings. I cannot praise the helpfulness of the staff enough but there are definite hiccups due to newness; a request for a vodka Martini brought half a pint of Martini Bianco; we had to wait for ever for the wine list.

To put the prices into perspective, we ate six courses, including Michelin-pleasing amuse-bouches, an extra pudding and petits fours: a deep-fried oyster in rouille and red wine reduction with tempura-ed courgette batons; a rather too liquid coconutty crème br°lée with a teeny scoop of intensely lime sorbet; a bijoux cake stand bearing truffles, madeleines, beignets filled with apple sauce and dinky meringues. These last two bracketed our pudding course; I was fine with my cheeses but my date, who'd ordered oeufs à la neige, a pillar of these sugary clouds pierced by a lance of caramel in crème anglaise with even more caramel, felt this was something of a sweet overdose.

But back to starters: roasted sea scallops came with a puddle of scrambled egg blended with black pudding into a delicious greige slurry and caramelised apples. Each element delivered sweetness: the maritime marshmallow of the shell-fish, the blood and butter in the eggs; so it would have been nice to have a sharper apple as contrast. Vivid spears of asparagus flanked snails bound in an eggy chicken mousse rolled in crumbs of morilles. The snaili-ness and earthiness of the fungi gave an almost muddy taste; they resembled decadent, deep-fried mushrooms.

Main courses of saddle of rabbit with confit ravioli and green olive purée was a roaring success on the pasta front - subtle, succulent and packing a savoury wallop - but the rabbit was a little slimy. A large lamb cutlet came with a ballotine of (unspecified) offal; unlike the snails, it had had its earthiness refined out of it. Bobbing about in its accompanying bouillon was a flotilla of Tobleroneshaped carrots adding little other than a kitsch jauntiness.

With the help of the divinely knowledgeable sommelier, Christian Aaroe, we tried a range of wines by the glass, including a 1998 Clos de l'Escandil Minervois. With his help, we also managed to rack up a bill of £180 for two.

So is Neat good? Yes. Does it demonstrate real ability and creativity? Yes. But is it perfect? No. I know, picky.

Neat
2nd Floor, Oxo Tower Wharf, Barge House Street, SE1