The basic beauty of Balzac

This review was first published in January 2002

I'm amazed I've never come across Bistro Balzac before: it's been sitting on a junction between two major roads for 30 years. Apologies, therefore, to my colleague who'd been bending my ear about it for some time: not only did I ignore him but I went with someone else.

Balzac conforms precisely to my pet theory that if you remain exactly the same, every now and then you'll come back bang into fashion. It's captured the current, reactionary food trend perfectly: its menu of unreconstructed French bistro classics is just so 'now' it's positively groundbreaking. They simply know what works for them: set menus, familiar ingredients, gentle prices.

Food is unpretentiously good: from excellent bread and butter to a textbook crëme brulèe, it operates on the practice makes perfect principle. Meaty, sweet onion soup, dense with gruyëre; a salad with a panoply of duck - smoked, roast, foie gras; accurately cooked salmon with leeks, slow-roasted tomatoes and rice in a creamy sauce; vast shrimps in pungently garlicky butter; all were competent versions.

Sour notes were only sounded by the late substitution of a round of toast under grilled goat's cheese instead of a tatin of caramelised shallots and the strange choice of wall art: moody black and white shots of Henry Kelly and a superbly mulletted Simon Le Bon never did do much for my digestion.

Balzac Bistro
4 Wood Lane, Shepherd's Bush, W12 7DP