Le Petit Max, London SW11

My wife was unimpressed with her choice of main course, and she beckoned over the manager. "Which part of the chicken is this?" she asked. "It's cock, actually," he said. Her face fell. "You mean ... ?" The manager of Le Petit Max smiled. "Yes, madam. You are eating cock." It was pure panto. My wife spat rather than swallowed, and I was left wondering how best to explain that coq au vin à l'ancienne is made with real cock. They don't even teach you that at finishing school.

Le Petit Max is a bistro in an unprepossessing riverside development in south London - opposite some self-storage units and a burnt-out Ford Sierra. The interior is dominated by a 1930s mahogany bar, imported from Lille, but it's missing that certain je ne sais quoi. Actually, what it's missing is atmosphere.

If ever you're offered a table at quarter-past anything, decline. If they watch the clock that closely, they aren't welcoming people. Our waitress was certainly in no hurry to say hello. But that's because she probably didn't know what the word was in English. She couldn't explain what foie gras en bocal was. It means "in a pot". So goodness only knows what she would have done if I'd asked her to talk me through the assiette of charcuterie variée (£4.50).

But I still had high hopes of the food because the manager of Le Petit Max - Max Renzland - knows his onions. For your information, it's not Max who's Petit. It's the premises. Max is a well-fed man with a ponytail. And he's quite the patron. It's why he likes to say, "Bon appetit, messieurdames" to every table as their food arrives. Max may not be French, but he's fluent.

I could see that the menu du jour - two courses for £12.50, three for £16.50 - represented terrific value. Considering that Max likes to go to Anjou to get his chickens (while a lot of suppliers go to the Eastern Bloc), £12.50 would barely cover his petrol money. He gets his boudin noir from a small butcher in Normandy. The taste of their primordial, bloody ooze was comforting. But their skins didn't melt away to nothing like they should.

The imam bayildi (£4.50) caught my eye. The name, literally, means "our imam has fainted" - which makes it sound like a medical drama on Turkish television. The story goes that an imam was ending his fast, and was so taken with the aroma of this aubergine dish that he died. I, however, just don' t get cold food. Why bother? I may as well buy it from Marks & Spencer. The raisins and cayenne were probably an authentic touch, but the end result had too much of a chutney feel.

The dish did, however, illustrate that Petit Max were attempting to rewrite the classic bistro menu. Like the anchovies, butter and shallots (£6.50), a dish that hails from Catalonia. Max wants his place to be about feelgood food. And why not? These days, there's curry on the menu at La Coupole in Paris. And fish and chips. But some traditions are just too venerable to mess with. Like Piaf. In a bistro, you never play Dolly Parton's "Nine to five". Never never never.

Potée maison smoked echine, Montbeliard Savoy cabbage, broth (the commas were probably the work of the French-speaking waitress) is ideal after a day on the ski slopes. But that's a moot point round Battersea. The broth managed to coax a real sweetness out of the cabbage, and the cumin-flecked Montbeliard sausages were unapologetically "artisanal" (which means "chewy" in French). It was a simple dish, beautifully executed.

Which was round about when the coq au vin à l'ancienne (£9.50) arrived. You'd expect to see the bones of a roasting chicken - or a stewing hen, but this big bird was more like a donkey. I liked the authenticity of using it. I liked that its blood fed into the sauce, which was almost black when it arrived. But I didn't like the stringy meat. It would have been better for bouillon.

The desserts were very French. And uninspiring. Take the baba savarin au rhum. In French, the word baba means "falling over drunk". Not on this rhum you won't. The mountainous, yeasty cake was steeped in something cheap and oily. It was like sucking on an AA man's overalls. I always forget that flan (£2.50) in France is crème caramel, a dessert I've always found bland - a country cousin of the crème brûlée. I should have gone for the Armagnac and Agen prune ice cream.

As my wife and I were moaning about how unromantic Le Petit Max was, a young man at table three fell on one knee and proposed to his girlfriend. The entire restaurant applauded. It was like we were in a scene from Love Actually. Then a dessert was delivered to table five, and the entire restaurant started singing "Happy Birthday". When did this become America? Do we clap when pilots land planes now? Maybe I am just too jaundiced by life. But that still doesn't excuse the Dolly Parton. E

Le Petit Max, Riverside Plaza, Chatfield Road, London SW11 (020-7223 0999)

Meal for two: around £40 without wine

SECOND HELPINGS: SMALL BUT PERFECTLY FORMED

By Caroline Stacey

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