Spoilt for choice in Notting Hill

This review was first published in May 2002

The menu in The Electric is a very lovely thing. Not only does it come in one of those wildly sexy plastic and leatherette sleeves that always make me think of American steak'n'eggs diners and early Jack Nicholson, but it's crammed to distraction with the most seductive bunch of dishes. You want them all.

It's clearly the work of someone striving to give people what they actually want to eat. Hey - controversial! And it's flexible: a true brasserie menu for an operation that keeps true brasserie hours.

It's worth bearing this in mind: go at unusual hours - for breakfast, late, or mid-afternoon; the rest of the time you can't get near it for love nor money.

There's been a lot of buzz about The Electric: the fact that it's attached to the gorgeously renovated Electric Cinema and its Babington House/Soho House heritage has had style monitors' antennae twitching. Also it's in Notting Hill. So, basically, unless you're Claudia Schiffer or Madonna, you're stuffed.

And it's a genuinely attractive place (although it was so unbearably hot the night we visited, I dread to think what it'll be like at the height of our muggy city summer); you walk through a long, artfully 'undesigned' bar packed with the slender, the beautiful - plus this area's inevitable scrawny Sex/City clones - into a windowless space simply decked out with zinc bistro tables and yards of plummy leather banquettes.

The open kitchen appears to jut into the room: you can see just how hard these guys work to churn out that heart-throb of a menu. There are 'Small Plates', tapas-like dishes; sandwiches; mains; salads; a fresh seafood section with everything from a bucket of prawns to beluga caviar; dishes to share, such as chateaubriand with lobster or potroast chicken forestiëre; irresistible-sounding puddings; cheese boards offering three, five and eight choices; even a daily roast with carefully-sourced meat such as Gloucester old spot pig or loin of Denham Estate venison. For someone of a greedy disposition, it's alarmingly fraught with possibilities.

In the event, I chose badly. Faced with so many options, I panicked and resorted to a burger: not as lame as it sounds, a perfect burger is a reliable kitchen litmus-test and as hard to find as a perfect carbonara or au poivre sauce. It was OK: made from good quality meat but grilled too slowly so it lacked succulence. It was dwarfed by a mammoth, dryish roll and had no favours done to it by bland, watery cauliflower cheese.

Presentation is a bit tricksy: burger on heavy, wooden carving board (I begged for a plate; call me old-fashioned), splendid chips in tin buckets; fabulously sweet and garlicky moules mariniëres (not mine, sadly) in what seemed to be a galvanised waste-paper bin. Other choices varied in quality: a bouillabaisse contained too much saffron and not enough chunks of fish; a steak with bèarnaise sauce was textbook: properly hung, velvety meat and addictive sauce; duck ' shepherd's pie' was a little pointless, not that much of an improvement on the common-or-garden variety.

'Small Plates' of teeny sautèed chorizo and tender strips of battered squid with flawless mayo were both heavenly. Service is decidedly charming, helpful and patient - even when we complained about being served a half-full carafe of wine. This is apparently how it comes; is it just me, or is that not plain peculiar?

Perhaps in a different location and with a different pedigree, The Electric wouldn't be quite so gushingly received or so oversubscribed. Still, I can't imagine going there and not having a good time or a pleasant, agreeably priced meal. Can't say fairer and all that.

Fay Maschler at Electric Brasserie
The wine list at Electric Brasserie
Top Fives: Notting Hill hangouts