restaurants Not Nico

Nice view, shame about the menu

The Pavilion Restaurant, RIP, was one of those London dining rooms that tended to sit empty. Set in a splendidly big space in the Grosvenor House Hotel on Park Lane, its views of Hyde Park were wasted. Like so many hotel restaurants, it did not attract Londoners. Nor did the tourists seem to take to it much, which is why the hotel's owners, the Forte Organisation, have called in Nico Ladenis. This great bear of haute cuisine had already brought kudos to the Grosvenor House with his Michelin three-star, Chez Nico. More food from Nico, it followed, would be a good thing.

And so the Pavilion recently became Cafe Nico. The only problem is that it is bang next door to Chez Nico, and the Ladenis family dislike any confusion between the two. Why one is a cafe and the other a gastronomic temple. So they posted a little note on the door of the new cafe. It reads: this is not chez nico.

This is hardly the sort of welcome that will win a customer care award, or fill up a problematical space. And 140 customers will be required to fill this one. The first time I visited Cafe Nico, it was near empty and cold as a morgue. It was on a cool and rainy Saturday night, yet inside the air-conditioning was on. There were plenty of, mainly foreign, staff around, suitably jacketed and sensibly prancing about. Our booking had been lost. Our reserved window seat was unavailable. A big party of ghosts seemed to have pre-empted us. A woman sat at a grand piano bashing out show tunes; in this big, hard-edged room, this created an acoustical ruckus typical of gyms. Bartenders and various waiters could not hear our orders, either because their English was not up to it, or because we were drowned out by strains of "Over the Rainbow" or "Ain't Misbehavin'". After changing tables, being served stale bread, shouting desperately at one another over the music and a great deal of nonsense attempting to order, I requested the bill. A succession of staff came to mollify us. I stood firm: we had just enough time to race across town to a place without unholy racket, and with heating, fresh bread and a house wine costing less than pounds 4.50 a glass.

Confounded that Nico Ladenis could be associated with such a place, I returned for a weekday lunch. This was more like it: the air-conditioning was still on, but sun poured in. The bread was still stale. But there was no pianist, and through the great sweep of windows, Hyde Park looked lovely.

The food is served Ladenis-style: out of set-price two- and three-course menus. Two cost pounds 21, three pounds 26. This formula works for their relatively small restaurants in Pimlico and Great Portland Street. I am less convinced of its wisdom in a big place - not enough people want to eat that much, particularly women, and for many people pounds 21 is way out of bounds.

Actually, it costs more if one drinks a glass of mineral water, wine or a cup of coffee. Or if one stumbles on the surcharges. Dover sole pounds 8 supplement. Chips or pommes puree pounds 2 supplement. (A surcharge for mash?!) Calf's sweetbread in brioche with morel mushrooms supplement pounds 3. Still, one can eat around the minefield: on the first two menus, there were between eight and nine starters, nine and 11 main courses and seven puddings; and several specials prettily announced by the staff.

One of these specials was a sweetcorn soup, a really wonderful dish: thick, salty, hearty ballast. Another, this a main course, was a big, thick salmon steak served on sweated leeks. Nico is good with fish, and, at a guess, this was a wild salmon, the last of the season. Its texture was firm, and it was cooked to perfection. The leeks pushed it to a luxurious, almost cloying point of sweetness. But it worked.

Then, from the menu, there was some remarkably silly food: a vegetarian who ordered "artichoke and asparagus salad with Parmesan cheese" could have been forgiven for rioting. A big artichoke base, deeply chilled from the fridge, was lathered with a strange dice of undercooked, out of season, chopped up sprue in a thick dressing. There was some sort of crust - it seemed nutty. Artistic curls of Parmesan served as garnish. Moral: artichoke and asparagus do not go together, in or out of season. Another ridiculous affront to sense and seasonality was risotto with button mushrooms, served at the height of a bumper porcini season.

As a main course, bangers and mash were served in a curious fashion: sausages in a highly reduced, glutinous slick of sauce, and mash in a little bowl to the side. Mr Ladenis explained later that American tourists ask for it this way. Well, it is a convenient coincidence that bunging mash in bowls suits the restaurant's practice of charging a pounds 2 supplement when ordered with other dishes.

The wine list offers nothing under pounds 18.50 a bottle. A house white was unexceptional, a red Zinfandel really rather wonderful, plummy and full of spice. But two (small) glasses of wine cost pounds 9, the cost of a bottle of house wines in most places.

Worried when our photographer turned up, Mr Ladenis rang to ask about the nature of the review. He is used to good press from The Independent, and, in the past, he has deserved it. He stressed that Cafe Nico is a work in progress: that there is a new kitchen coming in the New Year, that the sign will come down. His family have bought new French posters which they feel will make all the difference. His publicist sent me a copy of the new menu, in which there is no mention of supplements for spuds. Or spuds, for that matter. But there are supplements, say pounds 5 for a peppered fillet steak, along with the boxed in note: "This dish can only be cooked up to medium." Excuse me, it can be well done, it just won't be. And this isn't Chez Nico, either

Cafe Nico, Grosvenor House Hotel, 90 Park Lane, London W1 (0171- 495 2275). Vegetarian dishes. Wheelchair access. Non-smoking section. Loud music at night. Open lunch and dinner daily. Set-price two-course meals, pounds 21, three pounds 26, total spend pounds 30-40. Major credit cards