The Painted Heron112 Cheyne Walk, SW10 (020-7351 5232)There is something about India that fills Englishmen with regret. Posh old boys in Chelsea (where this week’s restaurant is to be found) regret that we lost it. Most of the nice middle-class people round where I live in Camden regret terribly that we ever had it. Their daughters watch Bollywood movies and wear jewels on their foreheads and are terribly sorry that they are not actually Indian. And their brothers are sorry that they have to work in a bar to raise the money to go to India in their gap year where they will get very stoned and paranoid and be sorry about everything, man.
English cricket fans are sorry that Sachin Tendulkar wasn’t really on form in the Test series here last summer, and people who go for a random curry on the high street, over-order and then eat it because it’s there, mopping up the last of the brown Unisauce with soggy nans, are sorry for days afterwards. British isolationists are sorry that Chicken Tikka Masala has become our national dish, and groups of more than six who go to an Indian restaurant are always very sorry about their drunk mate who really isn’t racist but just has an odd sense of humour. Poncy food critics, of course, are sorry that the Indian food we eat in England is not actually Indian but a Westernised hybrid that bears no… yes, thank you, Fatty, we know.
And I am sorry, sorry as hell, that The Painted Heron has opened in Chelsea. Because the spoilt buggers don’t deserve it. They deserve places like La Chaumière, a few doors down on Cheyne Walk, where you pay £65 a head for some crudités and decor that reminds you of your preposterous little gîte in Provence.
The Painted Heron has a strangely gastropubby name for a sparsely designed, nicely lit, white-walled duplex overlooking the Thames which has linen on the tables, frameless abstract canvasses on the walls and serves very, very high-quality food indeed. The name is faintly contiguous in my snooty imagination with the notion of a gilded lily - and that could not be further from the spare, efficient and devastatingly tasty truth.
In recent years Red Fort, Tamarind, Café Spice Namaste, Chor Bizarre and Zaika have widened the availability of well-wrought, regionally specific Indian cuisine based on high-quality ingredients and kidnapped chefs of the top class. More recently still, The Cinnamon Club in Westminster has offered grandeur as well, while Cyrus "Namaste" Todiwala has opened the Parsee in Archway, and provides the best dhansak in town to the burghers of lower Highgate.
The Painted Heron is a more than worthy addition to that list. The chef is Yogesh Datta, who worked for the Raj and Sheraton hotel groups in India - which may mean something to you, though it does not to me - and co-owner Albert Ray once had something to do with the Ivy, but don’t worry, there was no sign of burnt-out advertising executives or bulimic starlets when I went for lunch. No sign of anyone, in fact. But then it was a Tuesday lunchtime in January in the all-too-familiar grey dawn of a new recession. And, of course, people in Chelsea wouldn’t know a decent restaurant if it rang their doorbell in green and gold livery and told them that their brougham was waiting. A good-value ethnic adventure to Chelsea man is an off-peak fortnight in the Michael Winner suite at Sandy Lane.
Despite there being nobody around there was nowhere to park. The streets of Chelsea are always empty of people, I’ve noticed. There are only shiny 4x4 vehicles that roam the grey highways like robot cattle who have consumed the human population and are wondering what to do next. And you can’t park because everywhere is residents only, and there are no meters or visitor bays. Because they don’t want visitors. They want to fence it off and keep hungry north Londoners in a detention camp like Sangatte until they prove they have no intention of staying permanently. They don’t even have "food critics only" spaces so that we can come and tell them what we think of their restaurants. Which is why, I suppose, the poor old Spangled Goose (as regulars would call it if there were any) was empty.
But go, I beg you, go. The food is bloody marvellous. Every single dish made me stamp my feet and howl at the moon. Well, it was empty.
Popadoms of three kinds were served in the form of small cornets with a beautiful red apple chutney, a garlic chutney bustling with lush slices of garlic and a sharper broccoli-based jam. A bowl of baby octopus and squid with coriander and lemon was like a sperm whale’s wet dream (that wasn’t meant to sound so sticky, it’s just that sperm whale live on squid). Three or four cephalopods the size of a baby’s hands were beautifully firm and squeaky and jostled for attention in a lively tomato-based sauce. A thickish dosa was folded over a gorgeously fleshy mash of spiced crabmeat. There were deep-fried dumplings served half-split with the golden shell revealing a green sponge of potato and spinach around a gleaming smear of white goat’s cheese, and the tandoori paneer was a sharp block of belting curd cheese with a green chutney. Under and over and alongside these dishes were various perfect puris and halves of lemons and limes to add zest where necessary. A dazzling opening.
We chilled for a moment. A bowl of black lentils with fenugreek and cream were chewy and purple and savoury and mellowed our mouths, along with still water at room temperature (I never drink wine with spicy food for it insults both, beer is for footballers and cold water is too brutal).
The tandoori baby chicken came. And I came over all funny. This was a good strong bird not much bigger than a greedy quail, served whole, orange from the oven and trickling juices and runnels of bright yoghurt, served on onion kulcha bread.
I picked it up and tore in. Sweet Jesus. And then I was sorry again because the chicken in your local curry house is not fit to cluck orisons over the carcass of this princely bird-child.
The rack of lamb from the tandoor had been, I think, roasted previously and then cooked again - certainly, they could not have cooked the meat through like that in the time we were there. Very tender and very fine, it arrived leaning on a bowl of "Pakistani curry" with more gentle bread, and went well with a side dish of curried broccoli and cauliflower.
The pilau rice was beautiful, the additional breads perfect, and the pistachio ice-cream heavily laden with saffron and the scent of roses. Unknown pleasures lie ahead for me on the menu in the shape of the hot and sour Goan beef curry, haddock with mustard and coconut milk and tiger prawns in Keralan red chilli curry. And if you’re in there when I come back, and you are a Chelsea local, then I’m sorry for being rude about you and your pals. I’m truly, truly sorry.
Food: 8
Service: 8
Dependence on your support: 9
Price for two (sans grog): £55
Restaurant choice: Indian
The Parsee
34 Highgate Hill, N19 (020-7272 9091)
A modest little site opposite the Whittington hospital belies the fine quality of this unique restaurant. Persian ancestry adds dried fruit to sweeten Zoroastrian scoff, and eggs are treated with an enthusiasm unusual on the subcontinent. The service here is gleaming and the value stonking.
Sarkhel’s
197-199 Replingham Road, SW18 (020-8870 1483)
Udit Sarkhel left the Bombay Brasserie to open up in Southfields. Brave man. The result is top-end modern Indian cuisine at suburban south London prices - weekend lunch for a tenner is not to be missed.
E-mail feedme@thetimes.co.uk if you want me to take you to lunch
