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By David Fingleton
Tate Gallery, National Gallery and V&A THE ART gallery restaurant is a pleasing idea. To eat and drink in an agreeably dec- orated room while visiting an exhibition or popping in to meet a friend for lunch, then looking at a painting or two, is an attractive idea. Both the Tate, with its restaurant dec- orated with splendid Neo-Romantic murals by Rex Whistler, and the National Gallery's restaurant in the new Sainsbury wing, with its rather less successful frescoes by Paula Rego, exude an air of relaxed enjoyment.
At the V&A, however, there is now an admission of £5, so that if you wish to lunch in the self-service restaurant without inspecting the exhibits, you will still have to pay a swingeing charge. This, according to the V&A's head of public services, Robin Cole-Hamilton, is because the restaurant is in the far corner of the building, and cus- tomers might be tempted to linger in the galleries, without charge, on their way to or from it. He agrees this is unsatisfactory and deters people from using the restaurant, and claims the management are working on a scheme to give the restaurant its own entrance from Exhibition Road.
Meanwhile, it is clearly only worth using the V&A's pleasant cafeteria if one wants to Spend £5 to see an exhibition. On my visit it is fair to say that The Cutting Edge: Fifty Years of British Fashion was keeping the restaurant satisfactorily busy. But the princi- ple of payment for admission to one of our great national museums remains a highly dubious one and ought to be resisted.
My visit to the Tate's restaurant was with The Spectator's food expert and leading car- nivore Digby Anderson and the artist Adri- an George, who was there to add Digby's title sketch as part of The Spectator's new Policy of publishing drawings of contribu- tors — but only of those of us who write about food. Lunch was a lively affair with much appreciation of the Tate's admirable and renowned wine list, which caused Digby to have second thoughts about his Plan not to drink with the meal.
We thus started with an excellent half- bottle of Puligny-Montrachet, and Digby and I began our meal with some first-class smoked cod's roe, served properly unadorned, but accompanied by a small glass of manzanilla included in the price of £6.10. Adrian decided to try the two-course set lunch at £14.95, but his starter of cream of onion soup with soft herbs was a setback, being disagreeably sweet, as if flavoured with apple. His main course of confit duck leg with lentils and chilli was delicious.
Perhaps predictably, Digby ordered grilled rib-eye of Scotch beef, served rare as requested, with good fresh chips. His only complaint was that the Tate used bottled mustard rather than making its own. My Mrs Beeton's Oxford sausages, with mashed potato and caramelised onion gravy, gave much pleasure, as did the Mar- gaux, Château Labegorce Zede 1985, whose distinction made it seem a true bar- gain at £22.50. I ended with a pleasing lemon and ginger syllabub, which came with a redundant glass of some sweet gin- ger liqueur for an extra £4.45. With espres- so and service, the bill came to £129 for the three of us, which seemed fair value for what had been a pleasant lunch in highly agreeable surroundings.
Adrian George also accompanied me to the National Gallery's brasserie, which is run by Gardner Merchant's Town and Country Catering, managed by Mark Rickard, who is commendably evident among the tables. As at the Tate, service is by charming young waitresses.
At lunchtime the brasserie offers a set lunch of two courses for £11.95, three for £13.95, as well as an a la carte from which it was perhaps a mistake to choose. My cream of cauliflower soup of the day was one of the better items, though Adrian enjoyed his pork and chicken liver pâté from the carte. He was not pleased, however, with his expensive (£13.95) medallion of beef Rossi- ni with perigourdine sauce, even though it was listed as one of the chef's 'specials'. Adrian felt that the meat had made a long journey, and he didn't enjoy the congealed sauce that covered it. A better and cheaper 'special' was my beef carpaccio, served with cold ratatouille and some good warm pota- to salad that I collared from the set menu. Adrian's meagre portions of cheese had come recently from the refrigerator, and my bread and butter pudding was dull. With a drinkable Cotes du Rhone at £11.40 and decent espresso, our bill came to £53.40 for a reasonable, if not inspired lunch. The greatest treat was seeing the new collection of 25 Monets afterwards.
It is fair to say that for £25, including a large glass of wine each and tea and coffee, the Polish law researcher Anna Zawidzka and I had a satisfying self-service three- course lunch at the V&A's new restaurant, catered by Milburns. We began with a decent home-made tomato and spinach soup, moved on to genuine shepherd's pie, served with a good selection of vegetables, whose price of £7.25 included a glass of red or white wine, and Anna finished with a rich pecan pie and I with an excellent gin- ger-flavoured crème brulee. Surroundings were airy and spacious, a fine example of the self-service genre — if only it were not for that ludicrous £5 admission charge. It is right to say that we enjoyed the Cutting Edge exhibition after lunch.
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