An Affair to Remember?

L’Affaire 

134 Wandsworth High Street, SW18 4JP.

When I was growing up nearly half the restaurants in England seemed  to serve French food. These days whilst not exactly an endangered species, you are much less likely to spot a French bistro adorning your local high street.

I think that’s a shame. French cuisine is regarded along with Chinese and Turkish as one of the three greats of global cooking and has been setting the global foodie agenda since The Middle Ages which is when, incidentally, the first French recipe book was published. 

And it’s influence still runs as far and wide as Wandsworth High Street where L’Affaire can be found. It sits in a converted pub and scores some seriously high TripAdvisor reviews, pretty much level pegging with Gordon Ramsay, Royal Hospital Road.

It was a hot Friday night in late spring when the Queen of the Wharf (QW) and I wandered in sans reservations (see what I did there?) looking for something to mange. It being hot and a Friday it was relatively quiet, and as a result we decided to eat under the stars in the converted pub garden rather than battling the canned heat of the main bar.

The garden was a delight. A relative oasis of calm for a Friday did looks as though it could do with a lick of paint and a general tidy up.

Our waitress had a delightful French accent, so pronounced that QW felt she had to inquire as to which part of France she hailed from. Budapest was the surprising answer, the accent she had acquired from working at the restaurant for the last couple of years and practicing her English with the French owner. This faux-French lady then brought us the menu and wine list to study.

The menu is obviously French, but in a minor key. More Babar the elephant than Asterix the Gaul. There are pre-starter nibbles, sharing platers, starters, main courses and a steak menu. 

Most of these are reasonably priced, with starters between £5-£9 & main courses £13-£17. My gripes we were with the sharing platters at £17-£20 and similar for the steaks. That’s not such a bad price for a steak I hear you say, well no it’s not but these are basically naked coming only with grilled tomatoes, any sauce, salad or fries would be extra.

The choice of starters included such quintessential French classics as cheese souffle, snails and calamari, well France does have an extensive coastline. I think I would generally prefer to order a bout of the shingles than snails, but due to some obviously long-standing grudge that I was hitherto unaware of, she made me partake a portion of this maligned mollusc. She herself enjoyed the calamari which was cut thin and tasted fresh, very enjoyable indeed.

The snails were almost pleasant, remarkably unchewy and having just the right amount of garlic. The sourdough toast that accompanied the perfect vehicle for getting any leftover sauce to its intended destination dans ma bouche. Now I’m not saying I’d do anything as rash as ordering them again, I’d definitely go for the souffle which looked amazing when I saw an order go to another table, but it wasn’t as bad as I could imagine.

A word here about the wine list, for a French restaurant the list was remarkably inclusive of all wine producing nations. Prices range from £19 up with most sitting around £2-£35. I ordered an Angels and Demons Californian rose at £30, which was from the upper slopes of what I was considering…but I’d never had an American rose before. It was good, dry but with fruit overtones, the perfect accompaniment to the Barbary duck breast I’d ordered for my main course, probably not as good for the QW’s steak, but she’d made me eat snails!

The duck was one of the more expensive main courses at £16.50 but recommended by our faux-French waitress. Yep, it was great and reminded me why I considered eating duck in the first place. We shared side orders of dauphinoise potatoes (which Siri when I was looking up the classic ingredients insisted were called dolphin noise,) and tenderstem broccoli and the duck came with green beans. 

The QW’s hanger steak was cooked well and tasted good and was the cheapest cut on the menu at £15. I think though she was more impressed with the dolphin noise which she consumed at rather a rapid rate.

Having consumed starters and a main course it left little room for pudding. I am however willing to make sacrifices for my art and therefore did order a brandy Alexander as an after-dinner cocktail. L’Affaires cocktails come in for a lot of praise on social media, and if this was representative I can see why. Sweet, creamy with nice boozy overtones this was like having a pudding in glass, delicious.

The bill when it finally meandered its way over to our table was a very reasonable £94. I do mean reasonable as remember we’d had two courses each, a rather more pricey than median bottle of wine and a cocktail. The food was good, and in the case of my duck superb. Whether it is really one of the best 100 or so restaurants in London is open to conjecture as I haven’t eaten in all of them, what I can say is that I’m glad it’s within a mile walking distance of our flat.