Wine list at Electric Brasserie

This review was first published in May 2002

A brasserie drinks card is hard to perfect. The ideal is to get in, get restored and get out. Too much choice takes too much time. You need wines of the Yorkshire school: straightforward, robust, characterful. Needless expense is unwelcome. We will see whether the Electric Brasserie is destined to live up to its name, or whether it will become what it already looks like: a popular though rather cramped local restaurant.

I was told by the sweetly welcoming Shelley Kleyn that the cocktails were electrifying, so my guest and I tackled three. The blood-orange daiquiri was best, the faintly sweaty flavour of the tequila combining desirably with the hygienic freshness of citrus (£6 plus 75p service).

Berry bramble - ice and alcohol underneath a pond blanket of pulped berries - was harder work, at least until we thoroughly mixed all the ingredients (also £6.75); while fresh melon lacked the piquancy needed to pervert a vodka martini (£6.50 or £7.31, including service).

The wine list, compiled by John Laycock with help from ex-Hotel du Vin sommelier Vincent Gasnier, didn't crackle as I hoped. A Vins de Pays d'Oc called Griffin Creek may, for all I know, be a blinder, but it sounds dismal. There are no creeks or griffins in Languedoc and, faced with transparent lack of authenticity of this sort, and no space for an enthusiastic note, you suspect the worst.

It headed the list of wines by the glass - of which, in the end, we chose four: a Sauvignon Blanc from Moulin du Gassac (175ml, £4.22, including service), a Chenin Blanc from Bay View in South Africa (£4.78), a Syrah from the sound northern RhÙne domain of Louis ChËze (£5.16) and the Chilean Cabernet Sauvignon of Los Vascos (£5.63).

These were solid, Yorkshire-like choices, though none lingered in the mind for much longer than their flavours took to clear the mouth (the sappy Chenin Blanc and the soothing, minty Cabernet Sauvignon were best). Their bottle prices (£18 to £25.31. including service) make them modest value.

I've trawled the rest of the list to find something to catalyse enthusiasm, but without much success. I loved the frank, juicy, ripe and exuberant 1999 Chorey-les-Beaune from Tollot-Beaut so much that I bought myself a case when it was first offered for sale as a cask sample. The £11.22 I paid from Justerini and Brooks, though, has metamorphosed into £50.06, including service, here. This is going it somewhat for a brasserie.

Where are the cutting-edge wines from the Languedoc, the food-friendly Argentinians, the inexpensive and unconventional Portuguese? Elsewhere, it would seem. To be fair, John Laycock said that he intended to put more "fun" wines on the list in a few weeks' time, so perhaps all is not lost.

One final tedious semantic point: brasserie means brewery. These establishments were originally what we would call brewery taps, and it seems to me that any worthwhile brasserie drinks card should make space for enterprising beers from bottle, keg and cask. The nine available here are meek, mild and unexceptional, all standard bar fare. I'd shoot the griffins, drain the creeks, turn up the character; Portobello Road can cope.

Wine list scores 1 out of 5.

The Electric Brasserie
Portobello Road, London, W11 2ED