Daphne's, South Kensington

Mr Oil & Mr Vinegar journey to South Kensington to visit Daphne's, one of London's most long-standing restaurants.

MrV: Didn't this used to be a place for all the prancing ninnies of the stage?
MrO: If you are going to be vile and homophobic I am not staying.
MrV: Alright, don't get queeny about it - although I think you are making my point quite well.
MrO: I'm leaving...
MrV: Pipe down. Now then, it's so many years since I've been here I have no sense of the menu's zeitgeist, so to speak. If it's not the theatrical types in charge then perhaps it's the heavily-powdered old ladies who inhabit these parts. You can smell them as you walk down Draycott Avenue. It stinks like Monte Carlo. Perhaps we should order some Whiskas, which these old Dames seem to like.
MrO: You are very nasty. Actually, Jesus says it's an excellent menu which is pretty much as good as the rest of the empire.
MrV: Really? On a par with Le Caprice? Hard to believe though also hard to question the word of Jesus, who is most certainly the Messiah of front-of-house , particularly since Silvano Giraldin retired from the Gavroche.
MrO: Now who's being queeny?
MrV: I'll ignore your feeble attempts at wit. But it is surely worth mentioning that the greatest maitre 'd in London, Jesus (only fools pronounce it hay zuss) Adorno of Le Caprice, has had a hand in the reinvigoration of Daphne's.
MrO: Jesus is pretty much the most important fellow in the Richard Caring clubs and restaurants empire these days, isn't he?MrV: I suspect Caring might disagree. But even if he doesn't worship Jesus, he does think enough of him to give him plenty of ifluence with the menu.
MrO: The service appears to have improved vastly, as well.
MrV: It could hardly have become worse, could it? I seem to recall that the waiters were even more slow, creaky and smelly than the oldest customers.
MrO: That is unnecessarily unkind. Anyway, the food was quite excellent on our recent visit. I seem to recall that you had the cuttlefish to start with.
MrV: No, to start with I had a very large vodka and tonic. It was delicious. I'd have had another if you hadn't been such an old woman and suggested we move straight onto the wine. But yes, the cuttlefish came with taglietelle and ink. Perhaps I should have written this review with it.
MrO: I had the veal tartare which for some reason I had ever encountered before...
MrV: You're not implying that you encountered it subsequently? That happened to me a while ago with a foul dish I'd eaten in an Indian restaurant. Oddly enough, it gave me more pleasure on the second encounter...
MrO: Don't be disgusting. I meant I had never come across veal tartare before and it was really special.
MrV: Well I hate to praise excessively but I had the veal for my main course in the form of a perfectly cooked chop. I can't remember the vegetable paraphernalia that came with it but I don't recall anything putting my palate out.
MrO: That is praise indeed. My rabbit was very good. Rabbit is such a hard dish to cook well. Sometimes I think the Italians are the only ones who know how to do it.
MrV: That's because as a nation they are so poor they can only really afford pasta and vermin to eat, so they've become expert.
MrO: Well they probably wouldn't be able to afford to eat at Daphne's, then, but for the rest of us it's not wildly expensive - about £35 per head for the tthree courses, although they are keen to point out that they do a lunch menu starting at £16.50. The predominantly Italian wines start at about the same price.
MrV: We didn't have that stuff. Ours was much more expensive but I can't remember what it was. Perhaps you were right about that large vodka...

Mr Oil and Mr Vinegar spent about £200 on three courses each plus a large vodka and tonic and two bottles of wine.

Daphne's, 112 Draycott Avenue, London SW3 3AE Tel: +44 (0) 207 257 4257
http://www.daphnes-restaurant.co.uk/

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