Price is right at the Oratory

This review was first published in December 2000

Although centrally located, The Oratory has a singularly off-beat approach. There's the fustily baroque décor - ornate mirrors, swirly gold curlicues on faded-jewel walls, multicoloured chandeliers and an open flame in an imposing fireplace; there's the menu, seemingly composed of dinner party hits from the late 1980s; and then there's the somewhat astonishing wine list. It's almost as if they forgot the mark-up.

There's a very drinkable house white at a fiver and Pouilly Fume, excellent Riojas and Bordeaux at bargain basement prices. Service is brusque and slightly bossy. Staff took ages to take our order and then dishes arrived with worrying speed. (Also, a visit to the lavs requires the problem-solving skills of a Dungeons And Dragons player.) The food's not at all bad, although you wonder who devised the menu - is it a genuine anachronism or a post-ironic statement?

A Caesar salad contained those delicious, silvery marinated anchovies and a good dressing but the leaves were limp, suggesting that it had been assembled some time earlier. Vegetable spring rolls with sweet chilli sauce were ungainly deep-fried logs. A highspot was calves' liver - sweet, melting and slightly caramelised - served with bacon lardons and fried new potatoes. This was a significantly better dish than my main course, a green chicken curry that tasted as though it had been carefully prepared with a tub of supermarket spice paste. But about £35 gets you decent food and serious quantities of excellent vino and that can't be a bad thing, can it?

The Oratory
232 Brompton Road, SW3 2BB