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Hollywood's
HAVING just come back from two weeks in the Dordogne, going to a restaurant in England is a traumatic experience. The complaints of a restaurant critic — some- one who is paid to eat — are, unsurprising- ly, met with little sympathy. But obligation can make the appetite pall; and two weeks of eating for pleasure painfully points up how wrong we get it here.
English restaurants simply cannot trust that people want to go to a restaurant to eat; instead one is bombarded by a whole army of Concepts, lurking under hexagon- al plates and stippled friezes. I can't work out whether it's thought that if it all looks pretty enough no one will notice what the food's like or that no one cares about that anyway. Still, slick interior design, much as I have grown to hate it, is not enough to condemn a place.
Style-laden Hollywood's (2 Hollywood Road, SW10, 01-352 6884) saves itself with its food. True, the menu trembles on the brink of parody (duck's thigh served with oyster mushroom on a lettuce bed, etc) but the ingredients are fresh and good and the cooking respectful of them.
Hollywood's originally opened in Janu- ary; there was a change of management in June when Guy Hiscock took over. He shut it down for four weeks to redecorate and bring in a new chef, John Brabbins, and a new menu. The blue and silver which, in Mr Hiscock's words, made it look like a Hollywood hairdresser's (I rather hanker) went, and the now obligatory pale walls and subdued lighting put in instead. In fact the subdued lighting (dimly glowing bulbs studding ceiling and corners) is so subdued it's hard to make out who you're actually having dinner with.
There is less room for complaint in the menu's changes. For a start, prices are lower. First courses always seem to be the best things on a restaurant menu, and here most of the menu is composed of them. At the lighter end, there are soups (sorrel and beetroot, crab bisque, chilled cauliflower and mint, £2.50ish); on the more substan- tial, seafood lasagne, lamb brochette with cumin (both £4.95) and excellent home- made herby sausages and mash for £3.95. Hollywood's defines itself as 'Nouvelle English'; what this means is an eclectic style which never strays too far from current culinary fashions. You can have salmon and scallop sausages (quenelles are obviously 'out', but to make sausages out of such ingredients the casing has to be considerably tougher than you might like) with cardamo, warm salad with quails and artichoke and various other modish pick- eries (carpaccio with Pecorino, tartare of salmon with brioche etc). When Mr Brab- bins's eclecticism takes in Italian cooking, he is most definitely on to a winning streak: the penne with roasted peppers, anchovies and black olives should be made compul- sory, the pasta cooked as if by an Italian, and the sauce sweet and aromatic.
The menu is designed, again in Mr Hiscock's confident words, for people who live locally (men in Paul Smith suits, women in stretch lycra and Ibizan tans), who eat out two or three times a week and who might not want to eat very much, having had business lunches. For those of us who haven't had a business lunch, there are a few main courses: calves liver with shallots and grain-mustard sauce (£7.50); beef with creamy garlic and thyme sauce (£8.50), though you can have it plain, and I would — the meat is so good and the sauce struggles to keep up; grilled breast of chicken with fresh herbs; crispy duck with apple, ginger and sweetcorn fritters (£8.95): this is the sort of thing you can expect. Their puddings might tempt you to do without a main course, however, and go back to the nursery: try their eggybread with maple syrup and whipped cream.
The wine list does an admirable job at keeping prices, in the main, under £10, and there are some interesting things on it, house wine (£5.60 a bottle) is good, and house champagne at £13.50 a bottle must, now, be remarkable.
Hollywood's obviously a success, and though I do not grudge it that, my enduring objections make me less than keen to rush back: the eye-irritating gloom; the ear- irritating battery of too-loud disco music; and the irritating behaviour of its manager who seemed to think it odd for a woman to ask for the bill.
Nigella Lawson
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