http://www.cafedumarche.co.uk/
Times are increasingly tough for French restaurants. What with ever more exotic cuisines popping up on every street corner, it can be difficult for the palate to revert to sole meuniere after a Thai gaeng lueng or Malaysian ikan gulai. But there is still a faithful following for well executed French food, as demonstrated by the packed dinning room at Cafe du Marche.
I first visited this Smithfield institution with my family eighteen years ago. Since then the restaurant has changed hands just once. The place now feels more like an emporium with its three dining rooms, each with different menus. We ate at the “café” which is actually the most "restaurant" of the three and according to the management offers an “a la carte” dining experience despite being prix fixe. Next door is the rendezvous wine bar, whilst upstairs the Genier focuses on grilled foods and frites.
The place has a smug, conspiratorial vibe, with French staff dishing out upmarket French grub to grateful middle class punters keen for a taste of real France. The “handwritten” menu features French classics mixed with modern takes. Unusually, the management has adopted the commendable policy of charging 2.8 times cost for all bottles on the predominately French wine list. We settled for the “superior” (as opposed to “ordinaire”) house wine, priced at £14.95 a bottle. The white - a Viognier, was pleasant and not overtly flowery, whilst the red - a Grenache Shiraz blend was merely adequate.
Familiarity can breed contempt with French cuisine - the most one can usually hope for is charm and refinement rather than excitement. Cafe du Marche's fayre certainly doesn't pack any punches - father's soupe de poisson, blitzed and tomatoey and served with croutons, gruyere and rouille was acceptable but not dissimilar to the stuff available from French hypermarche in big jars. Brother's white bean and grilled mackerel starter was more of a success. My starter of chicken liver and poached egg was plain odd, sitting on a soggy piece of rye bread coated with a fibrous slimy green paste which didn't taste or look good. Father and brother shared a medium rare cote de boeuf (£6 supplement), delivered with a decent sauce Bernaise, fresh green salad and a saucepan full of oddly dusty and not particularly flavoursome potatoes, tomatoes and button mushrooms au Provencal.
A straight forward apricot tart and two rather small slices of nutty chocolate cake rounded off the meal. On the basis of the acceptable but unadventurous grub served to us, I fear Cafe du Marche might be resting on its laurels. The restaurant claims on its website that "it’s a mystery" why they do not feature in the Good Food guide. I suspect it might have something to do with the lack of innovation - there is nothing wrong with churning out French classics, but at £30 a head for the three course set menu, plus supplements for many dishes this is not sufficient. Our bill came to £173 including three bottles of house wine, some mineral water and coffee and a hefty £22 service charge.
At this price level, competent execution goes without saying; precision and innovation are the order of the day. Unfortunately Cafe du Marche doesn't manage either.
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