2 Battersea Rise, London SW11 (020 7235 5147). Meal for two, including wine and service, £100
I am minded to rave about Entrée simply because it has a piano in the downstairs cocktail bar. As a mediocre jazz pianist, I firmly believe we need more of these in restaurants. Live music, well played, makes the world a better place. Simple as that. What's more it sits under an open slatted staircase, so that any pianist who looked upwards on a busy night would stare right up the skirts of the Battersea yummy mummies passing overhead to the dining room. I did hit the piano – clumsily – but I'm so neurotic there's no chance I'd take my eyes off my hands. Anyway, I'm not a pervert. Stop looking at me like that.
The piano and the chatter-fuelled cocktail bar tell you a lot about Entrée's intentions. It is a cheerful neighbourhood restaurant, for a neighbourhood of people who own shelves of Nigella and Jamie, who holiday in France and Italy (the forgotten parts, darling, not the bits everyone else goes to) and who think they know one end of a menu from the other. There's money here, which brings with it challenges. The people with the cash have standards, which may explain why this location has been a whole bunch of other cheery neighbourhood restaurants over the years, none of which has survived.
This one deserves to make it, because hiding shyly behind an unremarkable menu of dishes is a kitchen and a chef – Omar Palazzolo – with some serious chops. Admittedly a little taster of a smoked potato foam with truffle and paprika was not the greatest start. It is best described as a marker of ambition rather than taste. You can admire the skill, while still wondering what the point of it was. However, a crab lasagne, the meat set in a light seafood mouse sandwiched by perfect slices of pasta on a textbook chive beurre blanc, the whole scattered with slices of caramelised scallop, is food to swoon over. Arancini, the ultimate classy leftovers dish, made from balls of risotto rice, were as good an example as you'll find this side of Milan. They can so easily be dull and solid, the Death Stars of the starter world. These were light and crisp and came with a mess of peas, avocado and tomatoes and just a hint of chilli. Scrape one on to the other and grin.
I suppose I should apologise for ordering the pork belly. But this one was so good, the crosshatched, crisp, honeyed crackling giving way to completely rendered meat, that I'm not sure who I'd be apologising to, other than the pigs. And it's not my fault the blighters taste so nice. Blame natural selection. Blame Charles Darwin. A few sticks of salsify and carrots, a slippery carrot purée that had been passed and passed again, a disc of black pudding, a sigh of contentment. A chicken breast on a bright, light jus, with a heap of cavolo nero dressed with a garlic and tomato vinaigrette is nobody's idea of innovative. But who the hell wants innovation when all the essentials are in place?
Desserts do not reach such heights. There's nothing wrong with them. It is merely a list of dishes specifically created for a short-handed kitchen, all of which require no work on service. So there's an almond and plum cake with crumbly pastry and a soft, chewy almond centre, and a chocolate pot which was more a chocolate bucket, a chocolate bath, a lake of deep rich chocolate mousse so intense and large that the sight of somebody eating it all would fill an hour of airtime on the Food Network. I got two-thirds of the way through and felt a familiar surge of nausea and self-hatred.
Service is engaging and the wine list short but smart. What's key here though, is a kitchen working beyond expectations; one that I suspect could, with a couple of extra bodies, achieve much more. Plus, they have a piano, and an open slatted staircase. Or did I already mention that?
Email Jay at jay.rayner@observer.co.uk or visit theguardian.com/profile/jayrayner for all his reviews in one place
