Racine, Knightsbridge

Mr Oil and Mr Vinegar have been to the Knightsbridge area, where they dropped in at the Bunch of Grapes pub before revisiting nearby Racine, the much-praised Bourgeois French restaurant on the Brompton Road.

MrV: That used to be a decent boozer, the Bunch.
MrO: I liked it. A good spot for an afternoon session or a sharpener before dinner.
MrV: Now the staff can’t be bothered. They spend most of their time talking in foreign amongst themselves. God knows where the landlord was.
MrO: Maybe it’s part of a chain.
MrV: I’ll bet it is. Someone should compile a list of all the pubs in London which are owned and run by an actual person rather than a corporation. Those would be the only ones I’d visit.
MrO: I was not disappointed, though, by our return visit to Racine. It is just as good as it was when we last went, about five years ago.
MrV: There’s been terrible upheaval in the meantime, though. Henry Harris left to do his cheffing elsewhere and that front-of-house man Garnier set about buying him out, but then things got turned on their heads in the courts and Garnier was pushed out and Harris got control back again. It looked very messy and we never really heard the full story.
MrO: It was good to see that the front-of house was back under control.
MrV: I thought that waitress was a bit fraught.
MrO: Well, we did arrive right in the middle of the evening service. It doesn’t get more pressurised than that. Anyway, we weren’t kept waiting and the food was superb.
MrV: I couldn’t fault them on that. I am not quite used to eating oysters outside the old seasons but those Brownsea Island rock oysters were very good. Big and fat and tasty.
MrO: Yes, it was unadventurous of us to have the same starter but I am glad we did. They were excellent.
MrV: My calf’s brains were as good as any I ever had – much more interesting than your prissy brain and also quite beautifully caramelised in butter, and doubly enjoyable because it was National Vegetarian Week at the time.
MrO: My steak tartare was also very fine but you can get decent steak tartare in plenty of places. I wish now I’d given the menu more attention because I’d have loved to try either the calf’s head, for which Harris is famous, or the 45-day-hung Côte de boeuf.
MrV: I was pleased to see plenty on the wine list at less than £30 per bottle but I didn’t spot anything that you might call a bargain. That Chateau Dauzac 2000 – was delicious but pretty fully priced, I think, at £97 for the bottle.
MrO: Racine is only doing what almost every other restaurateur does. But the more I think about it, the more of a case there is for challenging the old three-times – or even three-and-a-half-times - rule of thumb. I am quite sure that if restaurateurs went for a more realistic system, they’d do better. People would drink more, feel better for having drunk better quality stuff and probably dine out more often as a result.
MrV: Restaurateurs are generally not inspired when it comes to business innovation. They’ll discount their food because everyone else does but the wine mark-up is as sacrosanct to them as tax is to a lefty. They should take a lesson from the fact that when taxes come down, tax receipts almost invariably go up.

Mr Oil and Mr Vinegar enjoyed two starters, two main courses and one pudding, accompanied by two glasses of Muscadet, a bottle of fine claret, bottled water and coffee, at a total cost of £211.31.

Racine
239 Brompton Road
London SW3 2EP
+44 (0) 20 7584 4477

bonjour@racine.com
http://www.racine-restaurant.com