Food of the world? No, it's a tired bar menu

Published on Wednesday 24 May 2006 02:37

Le Monde

16 George Street, Edinburgh 0131-270 3900

The Bill

Dinner for two, 39.35, without drinks

IT WAS time to make amends. My reputation as sybarite-in-chief, and issuer of invitations to baroque dining excess, had become as tattered as a Beirut washing line. Where once my friends assumed that dinner with a restaurant reviewer meant banquette seats in the Hanging Gardens of Babylon or canaps in Cannes, recent experiences have led them to assume quite the opposite. When the telephone rings with my plea for culinary companionship, they suddenly remember an unbreakable date with a shampoo bottle, or that the back stairs are in urgent need of sweeping.

So it came as no surprise that the debonair Mr D responded to my casual: "What are you doing on Wednesday night?" query with a very wary: "Why?" He followed this with: "We don't have to eat, do we?"

Mr D's lack of appetite should not be attributed to the last three meals he shared with me, he insisted. I thought I heard him murmur: "dire though they were", but it could have been a bad line. No, he had just returned from several days of gustatory pampering by the Scottish aristocracy. Lords and ladies of unsurprisingly traditional tastes who still favour hearty food, and lots of it. Five courses every night, to be precise.

Now Mr D is a chap who prefers not to compromise the fine lines of his Hedi Slimane Christian Dior suits - garments of such cunning artifice and constricting cut, they are said to have inspired Karl Lagerfeld to shed six stones. Slimane himself admits to living on tinned baby food to maintain his pipe-cleaner physique, though he won't say which brand (I'd watch out for Dior Din-Dins arriving in the Harvey Nichols' foodhall shortly). So four days of pt, cream soups, roast venison, rhubarb tart and cheese could necessitate a whole new wardrobe. Or maybe just wearing the wardrobe instead of the suits.

I promised the dsol Mr D he could be as restrained as he liked, and that my only wish was to take him somewhere fashionably fabulous to compensate for previous disappointments. I'm sure we both guessed that the chances were rather slimmer than either of us. But our destination was Le Monde, the new boutique hotel which has been slotted behind a fine Georgian faade at 16 George Street, Edinburgh, like a Folies Bergere showgirl hiding her spangled costume under a big grey overcoat.

Stepping across the threshold is as dramatic as Alice's trip through the looking glass - if her looking glass happened to be in Las Vegas - for a sledgehammer of fuschia neon obliterates all sense of place. Can this really be Edinburgh? The planners and designers of Le Monde sincerely hope you will conclude otherwise. They want to transport you to Paris, Los Angeles, Vienna or Milan, and that's what they attempt - space by separate space. I would hate to know how much it cost to create this urban theme park, but it's quite an extravaganza, and so disorienting initially that we couldn't work out what part of the shiny global conglomerate was serving food.

It turned out to be Milan. Or I think it was Milan. Tired old cynics like myself would probably call it a bar, but there were generously-sized leather booths on one side, and smaller granite topped tables on the other, as well as a lighting legoland which slotted slabs of colour where you'd least expect them. The strut and flourish of taped catwalk shows were screened on two walls, and the accompanying music added an insistent, racy pulse.

There seemed to be dozens of waitresses sashaying around, serving drinks, freshening drinks, enquiring after the gestation and wellbeing of the next drink ... but as soon as I opened the menu, the glamour shrivelled.

This was not a panoply of goodies from "the coolest places on earth". It was a bar menu. And a very strange one. The eight starters were firmly stuck in the 1960s (soup, salmon pt, chicken liver pt, melon with Parma ham); there were burgers, and nachos and a teriyaki beef which included Cheddar cheese (try selling that in Tokyo) and then another retro section labelled "classics" which offered lamb chops, fish pie, haddock and chips, steak and chips etc.

This was all as fashionable as winceyette. "I surmise this is food for people who only care about drink," remarked Mr D. So we ordered some Chablis, but not enough to drown our disappointment.

I chose la Parisienne mussels to start (5.25) and Mr D tried vegetable spring rolls (5.75) but it felt like being offered a selection of knitted tea cosies when you'd gone shopping for La Perla. The mussels were the smallest I've ever encountered, and swam in a fine imitation of Heinz tomato soup. The spring rolls were worse - bendy loft lagging smothering an exceptionally slimy, bean sprout and vegetable filling that was as pleasant as pond weed to eat.

More disasters followed with monkfish scampi (11.95) for me and a venison burger (8.95) for Mr D. The burger tasted strangely of cucumber chutney and capers, and was dry and crumbly; the monkfish was also dry, and the heavy batter-based coating limp. Both came accompanied by a huge portion of tepid chips. It was heartbreakingly bad.

Except for the pudding. Having eaten almost nothing Mr D allowed himself a hot fudge sundae (3.95) which he said was good, as was my nicely gooey chocolate brownie (3.50) served with ice-cream.

Go to Le Monde for cocktails, for sensory overload, or just for fun. But on no account go to eat.