Minor masterpiece

restauran; This restaurant would be welcome on any high street

How many people does it take to run a restaurant? At The Cookhouse, a tiny new place in Putney, southwest London, the answer is three. One to cook, one to carry and one to wash up. It opens only four nights a week. There is a good sense to this simplicity. The owners seem to prefer cooking and serving food to calculating PAYE for a large staff, and they have allowed themselves the luxury of concentrating on it.

They are Amanda Griffiths and Tim Jefferson. She is 33, he 40. They met six years ago, when she was the manager and he the owner of a restaurant called Cezanne in Twickenham. While there, they also ran a side operation that tended to private functions, including, they say, Ivana Trump's engagement party. Hello! magazine calls this sort of event a "happening"; British restaurateurs look at it as just so much "outside catering".

If Mr Jefferson's food has a style, it is that of a caterer rather than a chef. Down to the anchovy butter that outshines the bread, the cooking is out to do slightly more than feed us. Dishes such as foie gras and lentil terrine with kumquat compote are designed to make us say "wow". Partridge is not just pot roasted, but served, the menu says, with caramelised shallots, green chartreuse and pasta. Calves' liver is pan-fried then served with pancetta and a potato and beetroot pancake. Lambs' sweetbreads are served with Madeira jus. I did not try these dishes, and their extravagant sound may be a bonus or may be a flaw: this will depend on the cooking.

To judge from what I did eat, I am convinced that Mr Jefferson is a talented and serious cook, and would be a valuable addition to any high street. Yet the ambitious cooking and slightly florid menu-writing seem a shade eccentric, given the raw simplicity with which the place itself has been fashioned.

It resembles a tiny fish tank. A pretty one. The front and sides are pure glass. It was converted from what was once a deli, and for the past three years has been a derelict corner shop. Walls, tables and chairs have been painted a deep, pacific blue. Stereo speakers, tucked up against the ceiling, have been spray-painted gold. They look good; if only they were silent. I am in the minority preferring natural clamour - dishes, gossip, boozy laughter and children squealing - to piped ambience. Yet one finds these things too: The Cookhouse beguiles with the easy-going humanity of its young crowd, who clearly enjoy bringing their own bottles and settling in for special food without the formal fuss found in most restaurants that serve food of this class.

The menu, which is written on what look like Plexiglas screens hanging on each side of the room, changes monthly. The choice is ambitious. There are something like four to five starters, four to six main courses and four desserts. From among the starters, we chose a leek and Gruyere tart, seared tuna, and a dish of sauteed chicken livers. The tart was excellent. Its darkened top seemed too brown, but this belied a loose and melting filling, caught at just the right setting. It was simple and perfect, and partnered with a well-dressed salad. A generous, steaky fillet of tuna came with wasabi and a selection of pickled vegetables. To my mind the fish was slightly overcooked, but it was good and the friend who ordered it loved it. Placing the blob of green wasabi on the fish rather than to the side was a decorative stroke, but one perhaps best left to the diner. The dish was accompanied by various pickled vegetables, mainly cabbage, which were fine and neither added to nor subtracted from the pleasure of eating the fish. Last of the starters, the fried chicken livers were a pleasure to find, never mind find well prepared. In this case, their richness was countered by the use of pungent fresh rosemary.

Perhaps because Putney is a middle-class Tory constituency, or maybe just because the owners like it, steak is listed. Not just any steak, but a beautiful, thick and tender fillet topped with herb butter, served with good salad and a bowl of crisp, brown chips. The meat was flavourful, and generously cooked to the customer's preference. A medium rare one, as served here, is all the defence a committed carnivore may need when charged with culinary Philistinism. Lastly, a fish and shellfish stew was robust with the garnishes - Gruyere and rouille - to the side. My only comment here, other than that it was very nice, is that a finger bowl would not go amiss when a giant prawn has been placed centre-soup.

Desserts produced a prizewinner of a chocolate ice-cream: dense, almost fudgy, with a caramel-like tang. Why this came with blueberry compote I don't know, but the unseasonal (probably frozen then cooked) berries did not stand a chance in comparison. A biscuit would have been more like it. A lemon tart was fine.

The Cookhouse is a winning little restaurant, whose amiable intent seems to be to serve serious restaurant food at bistro prices. At about pounds 22 to pounds 25 per meal, we customers save from pounds 7 to pounds 10 each by not paying mark-ups on wine. That the food is luxurious makes The Cookhouse not so much cheap and cheerful, as a snip. I wish I thought its success were guaranteed. It will need support. Only a pair of real food lovers would be kooky enough to launch it. I hope they prosper