Telephone: 020 7494 0514
Address: Aurora, 49 Lexington Street, London W1
Dinner for two, including wine and service, £70.
It is very easy to sneer at the restaurant operation of Sir Terence Conran; that doesn't necessarily mean it's wrong to do so. There is something so very mediocre and unfulfilling about the 11-strong group that depresses both the soul and the wallet. There is only one star among them, the Orrery, which holds a Michelin star. The rest, almost without exception, represent a victory of form over content, where it is the look of the tables, the cutlery, the staff and, of course, the food (rather than what it tastes like) which matters most.
Harden's, the restaurant guide which is compiled from the reports of real people who eat out, each year surveys the major quality groups which have come to dominate so much of the restaurant scene in central London. The Conran group as a whole - which includes Quaglino's, Bluebird, Sartoria and Mezzo - holds down the bottom of the chart as if it were a finely designed lead brick. 'No aspect - food, service or ambience - of any group restaurant is rated exceptional,' Harden's reports in its latest edition.
There is nothing intrinsically wrong with restaurant groups. In principle they can provide a framework within which talent can be encouraged and, through bulk buying, should be able to offer value for money. On the down side, restaurant groups can use their economic muscle to grab the best locations, cutting out the smaller and generally more interesting independent operators, by offering landlords the kind of copper-bottomed guarantees on rents that first-timers simply can't match. What's more, they are in a position to use tactics which, while entirely legal, place lesser-funded outfits at a serious disadvantage.
Which is exactly what Conran is doing right now. When you telephone the restaurant at 49 Lexington Street near Piccadilly Circus in London, they announce themselves as 'Aurora Soho'. They do this because there is another Aurora, which has absolutely nothing to do with them, in the Great Eastern Hotel near Liverpool Street Station in the City of London. It's owned by Conran. The Soho Aurora is the original, having opened six years ago; Conran's opened in 1999. At the time, Conran said he was aware the name was already in use but that he was satisfied 'the size and nature of our operation was sufficiently different to avoid confusion being caused'. His confidence was unfounded. Gillian Mosley, who owns the Lexington Street business, reports an endless stream of people booking and then either not turning up or turning down the table when they realise they've got the wrong place.
Now Conran is trying to take it one stage further. He has an application going through the courts to trademark the name Aurora which Mosley is determined to fight. Should he win, it would mean, in effect, that he could stop her expanding into another branch under the name she chose six years ago, while setting up one more of his own. That would be a crying shame because we could do with more places like Mosley's and less like Conran's.
The Lexington Street Aurora is the perfect antithesis of a Conran enterprise. It is small and intimate with space for only 20 people inside and a few more in a walled garden outside in the summer. The unmanicured walls are painted a lovely bohemian blood red, and the food, while sometimes a little ragged around the edges, has an equally unfussy charm.
Four of us gave the five starters and five main courses a full shakedown and there were very few dishes that misfired. Most of the starters are salads of one kind or another, the strength of which lies in the sourcing of ingredients: the Orkney herrings which came with a salad of new potatoes and green leaves and a dressing of wholegrain mustard and dill (£6.50), were sweet and soft without lying on the uncomfortable side of squidgy. Likewise, the smoked-trout fillets with a watercress and beetroot salad were mellow and not too savagely smoky. An assembly of smoked cheese with rocket, pears, asparagus and pine nuts with sundried tomato pesto was as good as that list of ingredients sounds. All portions were generous. Celeriac soup with shallots and stilton (£3.95) was a real winter warmer, and had great depth.
Of the main courses, the star was the sweet-chilli-glazed chicken breast on roast vegetable couscous (£11.50) which had my wife practically humming with delight, and the grilled tuna on spring onion and herb mash was perfectly cooked - seared on the outside, pink in the middle.
The wine list is short and well selected and from it we chose a fresh and grassy Caliterra Sauvignon Blanc at £12. As to the service, it is as cheerful and efficient as it could be with just one person performing all the duties. What's more, she doesn't sneer at you as you walk in or look irritated at the interruption to her modelling career that your request for bread or mineral water might present, as so often seems to be the case at one of Conran's places. Clearly this whole trademark battle has a touch of the David and Goliath's about it. I know who's side I'm on.
Contact Jay Rayner on jay.rayner@observer.co.uk.
