Bentley's Oyster Bar and Grill, 11-15 Swallow Street, London W1 (020 7734 4756)
Meal for two, including wine and service, £50-£100
Obviously, as a meat eater, I'm happy to see animals suffer for my dinner, but even I felt sorry for the big beast I came across at Bentley's Oyster Bar and Grill, its flesh so terribly slashed and wounded. Then again, that's what happens if you spend your time shucking oysters. The night I was there, the restaurant's new owner, the chef Richard Corrigan, was behind the marble-topped bar, one hand swathed in bandages and sealed beneath half a transparent plastic glove to hold back the blood. It had, Corrigan told me, been a hell of a day: 1,000 oysters opened, and they were still going at it.
Corrigan is a big Irishman, with arms like ham hocks and a chest the size of a wardrobe. He has a personality to match, and here in this downstairs dining room he was at his best. He chivvied his staff, praised our choices, and ran about the space like a prizefighter anticipating the punches. It is a shame that he has now returned to his Michelin-starred kitchen at the nearby Lindsay House. Still, the virtues of this new Bentley's will remain. Indeed, studying a menu which boasts such standards as fish pie, grilled Dover sole and Welsh rarebit, it struck me as exactly the right place to see out a year's restaurant-going.
Among all the usual, fashion-victim stupidities, there has been one very encouraging trend in 2005: a return to first principles. It was there at JoJo's in Whitstable, where a one-woman kitchen brigade chucked superb squid in the deep-fat fryer, or at the Goods Shed in Canterbury, where the best ingredients received the minimum interference. Marco Pierre White decided to open a humble pizzeria and did a bloody good job of it, and Regent's Park acquired a Garden Cafe serving a terrific chicken Kiev. The Galvin brothers became everybody's darling simply for doing a straight-up French bistro, as did the team behind Club Gascon. I ate perfect fish at the Crab in Chieveley, platefuls of lovely delicatessen at Effings in Totnes, and cheered when the great British public chose Chez Bruce - which makes a virtue of doing simple things brilliantly - as their favourite restaurant.
There were other trends, too. The spread of the grazing menu continued unabated, at places such as the Swedish-themed Glas, the Grocer on Warwick and, most impressively, at Gordon Ramsay's Maze. None of these meals was exactly about simplicity but, because there were so many of them, a lot of the dishes were. And reassuringly, Maze displayed an interest in price point which had never before been one of Ramsay's strong suits. The stupidities were, of course, as stupid as ever: Center Parcs attempted 'fine dining' and left me feeling grateful that my wife was too unwell to detain us for pudding; Tugga defamed the good name of Portuguese food, and at Cocoon, the menu ranged across Asia, doing terrible things to noble culinary traditions.
Against all that, a place like Bentley's makes so much sense. It first opened in 1916 and became the sort of establishment joint where gentlemen of a certain age liked to eat British standards while dreaming about a spanking from nanny. Corrigan was head chef here 12 years ago and has returned to give it new life, with great success. Oyster sales have risen fivefold since his return. Upstairs is a posh-looking dining room with a few meat dishes on the menu - lamb pudding, mixed grill, roast mallard - but the real fun is to be had downstairs at the bar, watching the shells fly.
Here, oysters - both natives and rock - come with shallot vinegar, and fish soup is accompanied by croutons and rouille. This was a thick, textured affair which I liked very much, but Corrigan wanted to take it back, saying it needed to be passed again. I refused, so he sent out a second, smoother version. The second passing had opened up the flavours but I still loved the first. (You might assume from this that he had rumbled me. I'm not so sure. Despite asking my name, he insisted on calling me Jeremy.)
Fish pie was a huge golden brown dishful, thick with salmon, haddock and prawns and a punchy topping that was half parsnip, half potato. At £10.75 it was also very good value. A Dover sole, with a chunky tartare sauce, was perfectly trimmed and separated effortlessly from the bone. There was Welsh rarebit to finish, and a light date and apple pudding with a bowl of vanilla ice cream, which had only just finished churning. To go with this, Corrigan suggested a white from the Languedoc - and at less than £20.
It was all very cheering and left me feeling both full and optimistic. Indeed, if you were to ask me to predict trends for 2006, I would say it has to be a further drive towards simplicity. I have no idea whether that's right, and I'm usually wrong. But I do hope so.
