Shoeless Joe's - just do it

This review was first published in May 2000

Despite an action-packed life of whoring, drinking and generally playing Laurel to Johnson's Hardy, Boswell is best remembered by the oft-repeated aphorism about how being tired of London is tantamount to being tired of life.

The ample truth of this aphorism was once again pointed out to me on an evening that began with me test-driving a rather elderly Rolls-Royce Corniche around Berkeley Square. Thus invigorated, I moved on to the bar at Claridge's where I met my designer friend and a few others including a Chanel-drenched blonde from Zurich.

Claridge's Bar is a wonderful place, a decadent deco bar created by David Collins, with a completely discordant soundtrack - it sounded suspiciously like Shakin' Stevens - and a catholic customer base. While the blonde from Zurich, her Chanel wardrobe, Herm?s scarf and Cartier baubles held court in one part, in another corner the paterfamilias of the Mazzilli family, founder of the Voyage boutique, chaired a small gathering of curiously dressed individuals who looked like they were auditioning as extras for the cantina scene in Star Wars.

After a while I took my designer friend off to a gala dinner at Shoeless Joe's on the Embankment. Shoeless, as I believe aficionados style it, is what I understand is called a sports bar. However, on my first visit I bumped into David Soul and instantly dubbed the place 'Shoeless Joe's - Home of the Stars'.

Sadly, when we turned up, David Soul was nowhere to be found. In fact, I could not see a single celeb, not that this seemed to bother a huge number of people behaving themselves impeccably as they swigged beer and followed a football game on one of three large screens. Indeed, a respectful semicircle of chairs had formed in front of the largest screen.

Although a major televised sporting event coincided with the sale of alcoholic beverages, the tone remained good-natured all night. We, however, didn't go into the main arena, but rather sat on a raised dais-style area overlooking the drinking floor.

I would be lying if I were to say that Shoeless Joe's would be my first or even 31st choice for a dinner venue. Nevertheless, there were enough people there who obviously thought otherwise, and they all seemed to be enjoying themselves. I was a bit worried that most of the men seemed to be wearing white shirts. I tend to regard white shirts as a cause for concern: show me a white shirt and I will show you a life of 'fully loaded' Vauxhall cars, excessive mobile-phone use and shiny suits.

The food is good without being remarkable. It is modern in a way that is completely unthreatening, and it arrives on the plate looking like it is longing to be photographed for Food Illustrated. The menu is clearly aimed at not giving offence rather than broadening the gastronomic horizons of the patrons: Caesar salad; grilled goat's cheese; smoked salmon; tomato and mozzarella tart; haddock and gruy?re cake; steak and chips; calves' liver etc. After a recent change, everything now falls into easy-to-grasp price points: £15 for two courses, and £20 for three. And given the competence of the kitchen in turning out above-average examples of these dishes, it represents good value. If you are on a boys' night out - as I suppose I was - the last thing you want to do is be distracted from the televised sporting action by, say, an interesting tranche of turbot, a particularly delicate souffl? or worries about the bill.

As if to bear out this supposition, our waiter tried to engage us in conversation, asking how the game had turned out. I genuinely had no inkling what he was on about, until my friend suggested that he might mean the football match that had just ended on the television. I had no idea, so I said that it had been a draw, but that the umpires were at this very minute studying the photo finish and were withholding the final result pending a stewards' enquiry.

He seemed satisfied and took my order for pudding, an excellent cheesecake of baked vanilla and ricotta with a compote of berries.

Once I got my head round the concept of going out to a restaurant to watch television, I began to enjoy myself. The football was followed by a quite excellent programme sponsored by Red Bull that involved people setting fire to themselves while ski-jumping into a swimming-pool, riding motorcycles up near-vertical hills and falling off, parachuting off bridges and windsurfing in what looked like extremely powerful hurricanes.