The fantastic Fox

Mike Belben runs both the Eagle and the Fox, and he knows a thing or two about gastropubs.

The Fox has a downstairs bar with good beer and plenty of baying customers, and upstairs there is a dining room. It's a dark, welcoming place with ill-assorted tables, chairs, crockery and cutlery. There is a carefully cultivated Bohemian feel to it.

The menu is short, very short, with only four choices to each course, and 'fixed price' (two courses for £14, three for £18.75). You can get a decent bottle of wine for under £15. The only way to describe the cooking (apart from saying up front that it is very good indeed) is to call the dishes sophisticated. Simple but sophisticated. Gastropubs and 'sophistication' do not usually go well together, and too often translates as elaborate, fussy and expensive.

At the Fox the food is simple. Dishes may be peasant food, but the combinations of flavour and texture are very sophisticated and very delicious. The menu changes continually, and descriptions are a tad laconic but herring, chicory and blood orange turns out to be a stellar starter - home pickled herring fillets, crisp endive leaves, small segments of blood orange - a truly great flavour combination. Or there's warm root salad and truffle oil - fresh green leaves, the occasional asparagus spear and small chunks of roasted Jerusalem artichoke to add sweetness. Or confit tuna, white beans and egg - the tuna very firm, the beans nearly crunchy, the egg soft boiled. Very good.

And for once, the main course dishes are even better than the starters. Braised chicken and new garlic - two huge lumps of chicken sit amid juices with a mixture of pearl barley, green leaves and 'wet' garlic. The tastes are elusive rather than fullon. Perfect calf's liver and spring greens also shows off the skill levels in the kitchen. It is hard to get liver to the table perfectly cooked.

Over-cooked is easy and horrid, under-cooked is easy and horrid, just right is tricky. Against all the odds the puds are no anticlimax and include a dreamy creamy lemon posset served with ultra-short shortbread. Take into account the reasonably priced wine list and a meal at the Fox is most impressive.

The Fox Dining Room
28 Paul Street, EC2A 4LB