The Double Club

The most surreal charity bash I ever attended was in Santa Barbara, for the local fire station. Just before the pin-thin society matrons arrived to push lettuce around their plates, the hostess threw a fit. The gardeners had cut the grass too short. Calm was restored only after the hapless gardeners had sprinkled the grass clippings on the lawn and watered them back in. That was the Evelyn Waugh moment when I decided that Californians are completely mad but could probably teach us a thing or two about philanthropy.

The restaurant is tucked away in one of those little Islington side streets full of artists' studios, which has a very Left Bank feel to it. It is a place you might pass by without paying very much attention until you notice the big, burly bouncers and crowd barriers and feel a corresponding rush of adrenaline.

Inside, you walk through a buzzy bar to reach the eating area. The bar was full of amazingly good-looking young people who looked as if they were being filmed for a cocktail advertisement (we were very grateful for the flattering lighting). The restaurant itself is deliberately quirky. You know those naff white plastic garden chairs you replaced as soon as you could afford to? Well, you'll find them right here. It's a deliberate anti-style gesture and I guess the intention is to make you relax - and on that level, it certainly works. Scarlet banquettes add a racy feel.

We decided to try a mixture of food: Congolese starters and a selection of main courses from the Western menu. Fumbwa (which could work as a substitute swearword) was yam leaves cooked in peanut paste with smoked, salted fish, which tasted a bit like spinach purée mixed with peanut butter but with no hint of fish. The goat stew had a distinctly gamey tang and was served with fried plantain - the latter had us sighing with happy memories of breakfast at Gordon Campbell Gray's Carlisle Bay hotel in Antigua. The only no-no was our side dish of chikwange which, despite its spicy chilli sauce, tasted rather bland and stuck to the roof of my mouth.

It was with a certain sense of relief that we turned to our Western main courses, but my guest's veal chop was a letdown. This is a meat that should be tender but instead it was as tough as a traffic warden.

The veal was served with doorstep-sized celeriac chips that hadn't been fried very well and were correspondingly soggy.

My own beefburger (you can tell I like to live dangerously) was excellent and the chips were good enough to receive a very creditable 7/10 in the chip test.

The only puddings on offer were Western (don't they have puddings in the Congo?) and, like Western puddings the world over, were predictable and boring. A lemon cake. Probably a crème brûlée. Why do talented chefs fail so unimaginatively when it comes to afters?

But food is not really the point of The Double Club. Eating is incidental; you come here for a kind of adventure. There was an eclectic crowd of people on the night we were there - a couple of big, noisy tables, a pretty pair of gay men and a group of animated Italians. It's a venue that has a distinctly European flavour and works on many levels. After dinner, you can dance until the early hours in the disco.

The restaurant is only going to be open for six months, so if you want to experience an exciting and altruistic new concept, you'd better get down there. At the double.