Pollen Street Social, the Emperor's New Clothes - April

Where: Pollen Street Social, Mayfair
With Who: J School
How much: Up there with the best... £150 for a selection of 8 small plates and a bottle of house wine, no desserts, champagnes (despite the thrice repeated offer of it at the start, a rather boring restaurant trick to play these days) or liquors
Come here if: you need to be seen in all the right places or you've just done a big deal and want to impress your partner with the depth of your wallet

I was testing a hypothesis for a new PHD for HR professionals most of the evening. Not because I am one, more because I was suffering from excessive clients and needed to whinge to J School. Do some companies recruit badly, only employing those who arrive as fully formed tits? Or do you get toxic companies, where all of the staff no matter how competent and lovely on arrival are slowly, gradually turned into arseholes through the lack of joy and the unbelievably stressful pressure of perfection placed upon them? A sort of nature vs nurture for idiots... If any HR professionals reading this fancy the challenge I don't expect any royalties, can point you in the direction of some wonderful examples, and would love to read the thesis.

Obviously I'm not talking about Pollen Street here, that would be rude, unnecessary and incorrect. The staff at Pollen Street were uniformly lovely. There were thousands of them too, in serried ranks in black. We had at least two main ones (one for speaking to and one to clear and serve), a sommelier and a couple of randoms checking in on us anxiously. You wouldn't be surprised if they were over-stressed and striving for perfection though, the pressure cooker of expectation here is palpable after one of the most hotly anticipated launches of the year. Following over 18 months of planning, Jason Atherton opens his solo venture, a move out from under the protective, if sweary, wing of mentor Ramsay.


 Someone much funnier than me described the current phenomena of small plate dining as "50% of the food for 75% of the cost". I see a more worrying trend... The revival of nouvelle cuisine. Think about it. Austerity budget, mass unrest in Egypt, rising unemployment, strikes, riots and a royal wedding. We're back in 1981. With iPhones.

The menu at Pollen Street Social makes the point heavily. A full two pages of small plates (or starters as I uncoothly call them) followed by 5 or 6 large dishes (or mains, keeping up?). We were told that it was entirely up to us, we could create our own menu. Maybe to go with 3-4 plates to begin, then to either take a main, or a few more small plates, or leave it there should you so wish and have a dessert or two instead. At least so decreed the man in the kitchen in the pre launch PR, but this insouciant attitude doesn't translate to the insistent restaurant staff and anyway, I really can't see anyone going to the bother of getting a table here only to pop in for a light snack. Except maybe the models flocking on the arms of their Mayfair monied rich boys, fairly joyless, overly gussied up rich people who don't really want to eat.

And that brings me, finally, onto the food. A few notable exceptions aside, it was sadly also fairly joyless, overly gussied up, rich and model thin. I wanted so much to like it, but just couldn't find enough to praise. Reading some of the critics and other bloggers who have been already I may be in a minority of one, but while they're preparing the way for the pitter patter of tiny Michelin stars, I spend my life entertaining at these joints, hence the need to know the latest places and I really know what I love, and don't love, about restaurants.

With the air-con off and a hotter than average London early evening outside, we went for some of the lighter plates. Despite being designed for sharing, they're not all designed to share. Fowey Oysters, hot and cold gave us only 2 crustacea, one submerged in a dashi broth, the other blended with eel and reformed as sorbet. An interesting concept, but the lukewarm mushroomy broth took more than it gave the oyster and the sorbet was a small scoop of non event, a slight and subtle briny tone overwritten by the eel. A single scallop, again with the sharing plate!, came with two denuded Jersey royals, their royal skin flayed, crisped and presented on top. The cabbage pesto alongside was interesting, big and bright. The scallop sadly was rubbery and overcooked. Crab salad was bright, sparky and everything a small portion of fresh shredded pearly white meat should be, the thinest slices of pickled daikon (a Japanese radish) gave it crunch and the look of a deconstructed Chinese dumpling and the quality of the meat shone through. The almond and crab sorbet accompanying it was a ferocious own goal, I left most of mine.

The low point came with a miserly pair of emaciated red prawns, sat in a bamboo steamer on a bed of seaweed. a teapot of consomme was poured through the slats of the steamer, the 'reveal' coming after we'd eaten the two prawns - a pair of dumplings sat underneath in the rapidly chilling 'tea'. blitzed fish in odour, scrambled egg in texture, nothing to tell of in taste.

The kitchen almost, almost redeemed itself with the final two dishes. The only two I would go back for from the menu we sampled, a simple onglet steak with a tiny cube of dauphinoise and a platter of smoked foie gras on thin slices of preserved apple with a raisin 'jam'. Perfectly sourced, perfectly cooked and near as damn it faultless. This was the meal I was looking for from Jason Atherton. It was clever without feeling the need to shout about it, still clearly containing the perfectionist elements and subtle twists, but these supported, surrounded and shouted the quality ingredients that deserved to be centre place, and that we should have been there to enjoy.

After two fish based sorbets, and a world of fairly extravagantly priced disappointment, we skipped dessert, grabbed an espresso and went. J School was presented with a tiny goodie bag as she left, remincent of the goodbye gift at Collicchio and Sons, containing two tiny caramel muffins and a tea bag. The cake was perfect. "Sodding brilliant", quoth J School, "we've eaten food from a chef famed for his cakes and meat, and filled up on fish." True dat...