Time to sip the apple sauce

Cider needs missionaries. Especially in restaurants. Look at the competition. Wine has just completed a resounding half-century of meal-time evangelism in Britain; the partnership is now accepted as gospel. Beer, once the swill of grimly food-free public bars, is now on the march towards a more natural and healthy role as a food partner, aided by pub grub, Belgo chic, and its ability to go well with everything Asian from lunchtime dim sum to midnight vindaloo. But cider? When was the sparkling, green-gold liquid in your restaurant glass last pressed from apples rather than grapes?

There's no good reason for this contempt, other than the fact that our own cider industry was built on tax breaks, low prices and imported apple concentrate. Its park-bench appeal and alcopop simplicity rendered it incompatible with tablecloths and folded napkins. The fruit spectrum and vivid acidity of fine, craftsman's cider, though, make it an admirable halfway house between the quenching bitterness of beer and the sipping, vinous intensity of white wine. Food loves it.

As you can now find out for yourself. La Galette is a clean, simple pancake restaurant in Marylebone recently opened by Leeds restaurateur Joe McDermott. The idea, he claims, came to him when, on a four-wheel tour de France, he ate in Brittany's crÍperies. Thus smitten, he trained under Jean-Pierre Lepeuve at the Ecole Ma"tre CrÍpier - the "master pancake-maker's school" - near Rennes. (France is stiff with ma"tres of all sorts: even the lifeguards on the beach are ma"tre nageurs, or "master swimmers".) To accompany the galettes and crÍpes are four French ciders, no doubt produced by master cidermakers. There's also a short wine list, if you must.

With a couple of reliably thirsty friends, I drank all four ciders, three dry and one off-dry. The best is the single Normandy cider from Bayeux. It fills all the criteria for good cider: its tastes seem suffused with the scent of autumn orchards, once the blackbirds and starlings have been pecking at the fallen fruit; the acidity is ripe and clean, not raw and oxidised; there's a little tannin there, too, to give the drink some bite. The other two dry ciders are Breton and Kerisac, both from Brittany. They are slightly more slender in style (despite, oddly, half a degree more alcohol), and the Kerisac does have the slight tang of gentle oxidation. Each costs £6.95 for a 75cl bottle (service is not included); you can also buy a half litre pichet of each for £4.75 or a 25cl pichet for £2.75. They're served in the traditional Breton bollÈe, which looks very similar to the ceramic bowls the French like to slurp their breakfast coffee from.

The galettes (Breton buckwheat pancakes) are given a variety of "toppings" to render them meal-like. Of the three we tried, each between £7.50 and £7.95, the smoked salmon (with crËme fra"che, lemon and chives) was, in the end, the best, thanks to its blini-like classicism and the fact that smoked salmon layers agreeably with pancakes. A paysanne (leeks with bacon and parsley) was perhaps too creamy and rich, using chunks of fiercely briney bacon; a forestiËre (wild mushrooms with crËme fra"che) was also rich but better seasoned, with impressively extravagant mushrooms including trompettes de la mort. The "warm garden salad" was a striking pile of sensitively cooked vegetables including baby squashes, purple sprouting broccoli and petite carrots which seemed to have been braised in wine vinegar.

The ciders went superbly with all - though, of 11 groups, we were the only ones drinking it. Perhaps this is the fault of the dÈcor, which is All-Bar-One bland, with jazz maundering on in the background. A few checked tablecloths and a Renaud tape or two might help the cider to sell better. We did try a bottle from the wine list, the 1999 Mas Llaro CÙtes du Roussillon at £12.95, but it was a disappointment, acidic and austere (despite being described as "soft and round" on the list). I should have stuck to the 1997 Clos la Coutale Cahors at £15.95, a safer bet.

The dessert crÍpes are based on wheat-flour and are thinner and more buttery, with deliciously crisp edges; we matched a crÍpe Suzette and a fresh-fruit version (£4.50 each) with the earthily soft Kerisac Doux (sweet). The cider linked arms with the summer fruit crÍpe, though it wasn't really sweet enough for the Suzette. I should, perhaps, have opted for Calvados (there are three, all from the Ch?teau du Breuil), but the units were beginning to get the better of me despite my long years of training. Human; all too human.

La Galette, 56 Paddington Street, Marylebone, W1U 4HY (0207 935 1554).

Time to sip the apple sauce
56 Paddington Street, Marylebone, W1U 4HY