13 Old Compton Street, W1
020 7734 0623
Mon-Sat, 8am-3am; Sun, 8am-12pm

5 stars: Champagne; 4 stars: Lobster thermidor; 3 stars: Boeuf bourguignon; 2 stars: Quiche lorraine; 1 star: Crepe

I suppose Old Compton Street was to Cool Britannia what Carnaby Street was to the Swingin’ Sixties. Its three tributaries, Dean, Frith and Greek Streets, may hold more interesting secrets, better restaurants and classier members’ clubs, but the gushing torrents of holidaying humanity that course along the catwalk of Old Compton reinvigorate the term “pedestrian”. It’s always a joy to stroll along that elegantly wasted, multicultural, homoerotic, allnight promenade. It’s everything that progressive England is supposed to be.

Café Boheme has long been a landmark on Old Compton Street. Before the area became such a happening hot spot, I believe it was an all-you-can-eat pasta joint called Fatso’s. My, how times change. It has recently had another makeover by the current owner, Nick Jones of Soho House fame, which seems quite a generous, if not unnecessary, gesture, given all that passing trade. I wonder how exceptionally bad a restaurant in Old Compton Street would have to be in order to fail? Inch for inch, the outside tables – ringside seats at the continuous carnival – represent some of the world’s highest-earning real estate in the summer months, permanently packed with thirsty customers sardined alongside each other in happy, high-yielding huddles.

Today, it was slightly too cold out, even for the smokers, so the tables lay empty like punts on a rainy river. Inside, it was humming. My initial impression was that I had walked into Manet’s painting of a bar at the Folies Bergères. Nowadays, Fatso’s is a belle époque brasserie, with brass and leather trimmings, eclipsed only by the greeter, who was altogether more eye-catching. She offered us a choice of tables, and we plumped for a cosy banquette and sat side by side, centre stage.

Our waiter wasn’t happy with our table. Clearly he cared, and spent some time scrabbling about at our feet, inserting the folded wedge of paper known in the trade as a “pimlico” under the shorter of the legs, as we acclimatised to the atmosphere and our fellow man.

Café Boheme is high-density dining, but the crush created an agreeable kind of intimacy at our little station. There was so much pleasant hubbub, I wasn’t aware of anyone else’s conversation in particular. I was having lunch with my friend and editor, to discuss my next book, but there were far more important things to talk about for the time being. She nudged me and whispered from behind her menu: “That man just ate his whole salad in one mouthful!” We studied him and his friends from behind the cover of our A4 cartes du jour.

The bill of fare is all-out French, from soupe to Nutella, which invited comparison with Café Rouge. Neither of us was going to drink anything, but I scanned the exclusively French wine list. The champagne selection was excellent, ranging from Cordon Rouge, at a reasonable £35 a bottle, to vintage Perignon at the deep end. Given the unstable state of the markets, a £35 bottle of champagne in a Soho bar is probably quite a good investment at the moment. Who knows what it might lead to? I met my wife three streets away.

By the time we had ordered, I already liked the staff. They were all genuinely charming. The pleasure of dining in the very heart of Soho is governed more by the atmosphere than the food, and the atmosphere here is good, the full-length shutters giving onto the street. It’s convivial, an easy place to meet people. I even started to spot people I recognised: the lady with the mad make-up who’s always in The Ivy was in the corner.

The test of a really great restaurant is that it should be able to persuade me that I like food I think I don’t. All food is palatable: it’s just a matter of acquiring the taste for it. A good restaurant can guide you through that process. So I ordered the dishes I was least keen on, partly for test purposes and partly because I was fairly bored with everything else on the menu.

When my companion’s mussels arrived, their smell lit up the table. The casserole dish they arrived in had a certain glamour of its own, and there were plenty of them inside. She was happy, so I chose that moment to tell her I hadn’t started my book yet. The mussels certainly softened the blow. My soupe de poisson was thick, hearty and not horrible, although the bowl it came in was. The bread, a thinly sliced ficelle-type thing, was a bit too much inside focaccia territory to pass as authentically French. French bread has a closer crumb. Just a detail.

Madame’s steak was a huge rib-eye on the bone, as big as a pizza. It’s the best steak – trucker heaven – but perhaps un peu de trop for a lunching lady, and I doubt it was French beef. You can also tell a lot about a restaurant from how good the chips are – a seasoned restaurant-goer can order a bowl of chips and read the chef’s mind, in the same way a customs officer can tell what you are thinking by merely asking you where you’ve been on holiday. These chips were in the French style, obviously. There were a lot of them, in a friendly, generous pile. They were long, straight and Chipsticky – all crunch and not enough puff. They were rather cold, and the oil, which carried some faintly rancid off-flavours, had soaked into them slightly. Not great.

I was happier with my kidneys, which arrived on a kebab skewer with a cloud of mash. They were actually rather good. There was an uninspiring salade verte, which used to be called a side salad, that we ignored. One’s heart should really soar at the sight of at least one of the desserts on offer. My friend was a little overwhelmed by her monster steak, and there was nothing new to try, but she chose the crème brûlée from the shortlist of French classics: mousse, lemon tart, crepe and coupe. I was uninspired and plumped for the cheese, which was described only as fromage.

“What’s the cheese?” I said.

“ Fromage,” said the waiter. Exactement. Just as I thought. The fromage was a St Marcellin. It’s a good cheese and it was at the peak of its powers, but it didn’t really want to be friends with the accompanying salad, which was similar to the one we had previously ignored. They had merely “pimped my side” with a few nuts, and here was the inauthentic bread again. I’m not complaining, just noting. My editor’s crème brûlée followed the same high-surface-area, all-crunch principle of the chips. It was good, but too big. The coffee came with those nice packets of sugar lumps you get on holiday.

The clientele weren’t anywhere near as irritating as they are upstairs in Soho House. The staff were exceptional: highly professional, going a long way to create a comfortable atmosphere, striking just the right balance between attentiveness and intrusion. Given the chances of success of a cafe on Old Compton Street, Café Boheme is playing it very safe. Here, I feel, is a location to die for, an opportunity to do something fantastic. It’s a shame that one of England’s most bankable restaurateurs couldn’t have dreamt up something more demonstrably English or imaginative or new for one of our finest streets. Still, Old Compton Street isn’t the new place to go any more – it’s the old place. Café Boheme is the kind of spot you might end up in if you were new in town and fancied a night in Soho, and it’s fine. It’s a restaurant that follows the crowd, but hey – it’s a nice enough crowd. A hundred quid for two without wine. Is that expensive? That depends entirely on what happens next. And in Soho, you never know what that might be.

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