Welcome to the inn

A letter arrived from a reader miffed at the lack of coverage of The Peasant. 'The fact that it has been reviewed as a 'gastropub' majorly understates the quality of the food. It is a shame this restaurant is not given a higher profile and the attention it deserves.'

The old semantic issue rears its tired head. We have seven gastropubs with Michelin stars in England (none in London yet), and, in my experience, most gastropubs range from fair to excellent, unlike the thousands of restaurants in this city serving crap food.

Frankly, the word restaurant is less of a guarantee of quality than the word gastropub nowadays. If you want to go to a good restaurant, then you end up paying for the whole poncery-pokery of the sometimes stifling French fine-dining circus.

This is a salient fact in the case of this week's review of The Farm. The chef here, Paul Merrett, gained Michelin stars at Interlude and The Greenhouse. That he is a skilled chef is in no doubt. He was about to move from one fancy-pants place to another when he stopped and thought, 'If I am honest with myself, I can't bear all that French pomp and ceremony. I want my food to be served in an atmosphere that I would like to be in.' So, Merrett moved to The Farm.

The Farm is located in an insalubrious back street of Fulham Broadway. There are two cask ales (London Pride and a guest, currently Timothy Taylor's) and a raft of ordinary lagers, but here the boozer references stop. It's really not your average rough-and-ready gastropub. There are acres of lush, dark wood and burgundy plush that wittily reference pub decor in a modern, sexy way.

There are dandy little flourishes, such as Balinese salt and pepper pots made of shell and silver, an 'ooh, feel that quality' oak floor and bamboo tongs in the sugar bowls. Coffee comes in that blue, Oriental Spode that says tea with Granny. They fold your napkin when you go to the loo. It's all a bit high church, grand, like Victorian pubs must have looked when they first appeared.

I took the siblings Amy and Will, plus Nick, back from a long stint in Miami. He had missed the whole gastropub thing and wondered, 'Why has this pub got a fancy restaurant at the back of it?' I reeled off a bit of pub history and he said, 'Well, you wouldn't catch me drinking in here. Pubs are cheap places for cheap people. I feel cheated.' He and Will pointedly drank lager throughout the meal. 'It's Fulham itself,' said Will. 'If I were a successful estate agent, banker or lawyer, I'd love it here.' They have steak sandwich and fishcakes alongside more cheffy dishes, such as sea bass with saffron risotto. Merrett's leitmotif at The Greenhouse, modern British food with Asian accents, is not much in evidence here. The food is simpler, flavours less startling. It's still pretty impressive, though - this place would be knockout for a second date.

Starters ranged from a roasted diver scallop on black pudding with pea puree - 'Great combination of funky, earthy flavours and textures,' said Amy. Will chose terrine of rabbit, mushroom and fois gras with apple jelly and celeriac remoulade, everything moist, supple and doing the right thing. My tomato tart was a simple and light (not an easy quality to find in a gastropub) thin disc of crisp pastry and slivered, sweet tomatoes with rocket and tangy chevre scattered on top. Nick was baffled by what had happened to pubs since he had been away and said he wanted lasagne and chips, not potato soup with ham hock, garlic and lemon.

Mains were roasted halibut on clam, cabbage and bacon stew for me. Everything came together cleverly, but the fish was a tad overcooked. Amy loved her Caesar salad with grilled chicken - big, rough, crispy garlicky croutons and perfectly cooked chicken with 'delicious seasoning'. Roasted fillet of beef with an intense parsley mash and bone-marrow crostini was good for Will. Nick couldn't find anything wrong with his smoked haddock fishcakes on a choppy sauce of egg and parsley, so he took issue with them being balls and not traditional fishcake shape.

Puddings were unusual and uniformly excellent, and notable for not overdoing it with the sugar, so that fruit freshness was not stolen by excessive sweetness. We all loved the brioche eggy bread, which came with apricots and an almond ice cream. The Farm offers a bit of West End sass in every aspect. The Likely Lads found it formal for a pub, whereas Amy and I just wished we had put a bit more make-up on.