Fay Maschler reviews Balthazar

"That implausible emergence of ordered tastes and schedules, skating always on the edge of a cartoon-like breakdown, a greasy sloppy purgatory, is one of the chief pleasures in life for Keith McNally, an intense Englishman, who at 51 has the same kind of relationship to his restaurant that a choreographer has not only to the top dancers of his company but also to its scenic painters, lighting crew and entire corps de ballet.” This is an extract from the foreword written by the late, truly great Robert Hughes for The Balthazar Cookbook in 2003. Ten years on and the scenario has moved to London.

Full disclosure here. Keith McNally has become a family friend through the happy coincidence of his young children and those of my stepdaughter Amy Gadney attending the same school. We met, discovered pleasures other than restaurants that we have in common — going to the theatre is one — and so this review is possibly not entirely dispassionate. Or maybe it is.

Having been stood up by McNally (conceivably unbeknownst to him) at a meal kindly arranged by Nick Jones of Soho House fame in Balthazar New York several years ago, I was not wholly disinclined to go along with the “It will just be another Café Rouge in this town” sort of comment being bandied about. Why it is most definitely not, let me count the ways.

Take first the bread, since Balthazar Bakery with its headquarters in Lambeth opened a week or so before the restaurant. Both the sourdough baguette and the rye and dark ale pain de seigle hold their floury heads high in the small world of artisan loaves that has evolved fairly recently. The butter on marble slabs is also notable.

Familiar faces such as merry Byron Lang, who has worked at The Ivy, The Wolseley and The Savoy Grill managing the floor, and the estimable barman Brian Silva, tempted away from Rules who can be seen mixing his potions beneath the ceiling-high wall of bottles, point to canny hiring. The acquisition of Robert Reid, who cooked for Marco Pierre White at The Oak Room when that restaurant held three Michelin stars, is apparent in a menu that has interesting byways as well as the highways of brasserie classics.

A whole slew of waiting staff dressed in white aprons, some on temporary secondment from New York — most strikingly Arnold Rossman from Minetta Tavern, another McNally enterprise — has been thrown at the project and the wisdom of this became apparent on the first night of real business this Monday, when they had settled into a coherent rhythm rather than the freeform extemporising of the preview week. The welcome to everyone is warm.

If you have been to Balthazar New York the décor delivers a profound sense of déjà-vu. Brass-studded red leather banquettes, huge mirrors that have seen a few reflections in their time, intricate mosaic floor, nicotine paintwork, illuminated columns and Venetian blinds to keep the world at bay are all there and here. Robert Hughes noted that McNally is not interested in “views” but in the Great Indoors — an apt description of the experience.

Highlights of the hors d’oeuvres tried were escargots, where in the garlicky, buttery juices a piece of bread gently bathed; salt cod brandade with brittle croutons; lobster and black truffle risotto which was New York Italian in format and the truffle a slightly fugitive flavour but luscious for all that; Balthazar salad, an assembly described by my friend Kate as “a nod to neurotic female eaters”; prawn cocktail with the creatures sprawled on ice served with two combative dipping sauces.

In the main course a standout was linguini fruits de mer with garlic confit, lemon and pointedly sharp piment d’espelette. Grilled whole gilt-head bream was a piece of magic, served head on but completely de-boned, removing at a stroke the argument some people have with fish. Grilled lamb T-bone (where we might say Barnsley chop) came with a nice mix of flageolets and merguez sausage. Le Bar à Huîtres and Les Grillades deliver items such as plateaux for £60/95 or côte de boeuf for two at £58, high stakes spent in an uncomplicated fashion. Want some quibbles? Frites are not yet pulling their weight, Brussels sprouts were overcooked and a lemon tart lacked essential asperity.

Keith and I don’t always agree. Lamentably he failed fully to appreciate Edward Thomas and the Dymock poets, subject of the play The Dark Earth and The Light Sky, but in their heyday he was doubtless busy bringing vitality to a run-down part of Manhattan with one of his extraordinary restaurants.