Warm welcome at Sands End

In fact, the area is remarkable for its very ordinariness. Row upon row of uninteresting, terraced houses. Bicycles lean against window ledges and young mothers stroll through the uncrowded pavements wearing looks of serenity. All seems well with the world in Sands End.

The restaurant where I was meeting the actress is also named after the area, but the charming maître d’ was no help when she asked him about the origins of the name. ‘That’s a very good question,’ he replied evasively, sounding like a seasoned politician playing for time.

Never mind. We were given drinks almost immediately and sat back and relaxed; it’s the kind of place with a laid-back and unpretentious atmosphere that makes me itch to kick off my shoes. Pale walls, scrubbed pine tables and a warm welcome by delightful staff make this feel like going round to a friend’s house for Sunday lunch.

The menu is the most original I’ve seen in ages. We started with nibbles from the all-day snack menu that would have tempted a saint and I wasn’t feeling particularly saintlike that day. Huge, crispy curves of pork crackling served with apple sauce were addictive and a tidy line of Welsh rarebit soldiers were pure fantasy food. This would be a great place to come with a hangover.

The actress started with six oysters. She wanted to see how fresh they were (‘very’), and to offset the damage done to her hips by the pork crackling. I had broad beans and mint on toast because they appealed to my imagination as much as my palate – they disappointed neither. It was a fresh and zingy dream of a dish, as well as being visually and verdantly perfect.

I’d just arrived back from a long weekend in Italy and was already missing it, so I chose summer vegetable salad as a main to remind me of my little vegetable patch in Umbria. The plate came looking as beautifully presented as a still-life painting: glistening baby carrots and grassy spears of asparagus as well as fine white discs of radish. (How underestimated the radish is: I get so fed up with it only making a pre-drink appearance next to salt.)

The actress chose the Arbroath smokie cake because a goat-owning friend of hers lives in a far-flung Scottish town and she’d never tasted one before. Topped with poached duck egg and crispy bacon, the dish actually contained three smokies. She thought the haddock tasted wonderful – like a superior kind of fish cake – but said that the portion was more suited to a hulking great rugby player who was bulking up before a big match. I was about to observe that if she hadn’t tucked into the crackling with so much gusto then the meal might not have defeated her, but prudency prevailed at the last minute. I said nothing.

The only pudding that was light enough for us to squeeze in was a delicate peach and rose jelly, served with apple sorbet instead of the advertised elderflower. But I like an adaptable menu; it reassures me that the food really is homemade, and that adaptability is a feature of this particular restaurant. The chef is Irish and the food is styled as great British food with an Irish heart, which it is. The menu changes daily and embraces seasonal ingredients with imaginative flair.

We were there on a weekday lunchtime and the place was filling up with an eclectic bunch of attractive customers. There were young women who had clearly spent the morning playing tennis and affluent-looking men wearing T-shirts – as well as an animated group in the room at the back. Casual seems the keyword here and I’m told at weekends the place really buzzes.

This is a brilliant restaurant that serves the local community well, but it’s worth making the journey. It would be a wonderful place to while away a lazy afternoon: you could morph seamlessly from lunch into dinner. Who knows? You might help me solve the riddle of the Sands.

The Sands End
Stephendale Road, London, SW6 2PR