A legend in its own lunchtime

10 April 2012

This review was first published in December 2000

A legend is always a help for a restaurant: in 1798, a young man from Perthshire called George Sandeman took over a site in St Swithin's Lane in the City as a cellar for his port and sherry wine company.

Casks shipped to London from Oporto and Jerez were lowered into the basement bottling cellars by a hand-turned Capital Patent Crane.

That same ingenious crane can be admired at THE DON Restaurant and Bistro which recently opened for business at the historic, vinously speaking, address.

The Don is a branch of The Bleeding Heart restaurant, bistro and tavern near Hatton Garden, which possesses a legend of its own, concerning Lady Elizabeth Hatton, the toast of 17th-century London, and her jilted lover, a swarthy European ambassador with a vicious temperament and a clawed right hand.

But enough of that grisly tale. Let us return quickly to the less menacing black-caped figure in a sombrero who embodies Sandeman's Don.

His restaurant premises - set in a courtyard off the street named after the patron saint of rain, to whom we should probably be making sacrifices of sack or anyway sandbags - look perfectly modern, an impression reinforced by paintings from the abstract artist John Hoyland.

A note on the menu points out that shortly after his retrospective at the Royal Academy in 1999, Hoyland flew to Oporto to visit Sandeman's. Standing beneath The Sign of the Don, then hanging in the Oporto cellars, Hoyland tasted the complete range of ports and sherries that the company produces. He then set about painting. The vivid results can be duly admired in the ground floor restaurant which is where we sat.

After studying the somewhat elaborate menu designated for that level, we wondered if we wouldn't be happier in the base-ment bistro, but the obliging staff said we could stay put and order from either menu - the bistro list is properly simpler and more modestly priced.

Bleeding Heart has always maintained a French identity in the kitchen; the style of The Don's chef, Matt Burns, is more what you might call modern British.

From bistro first courses "our own peat-smoked salmon" with home-made focaccia - a weird pairing - and seared peppered beef with shallots, fines herbes and balsamic dressing were ra-ra skirts of protein, perfectly all right but not feeling worth £6.50 and £6.75 before 12.5 per cent service. Pressed terrine of grilled vegetables with an aged sherry vinaigrette was a rather claggy vegetable pile-up, with cabbage making too intrusive a statement.

A restaurant main course of New Zealand venison with garlic pommes purées, honey-roast parsnips and a shallot sauce, featured thin, credit card-size slices of rosy meat. The assembly was fine, but it didn't stop me reaching for the rather good chips that came with the bistro dish of "lamburger" with caramelised red onions, chosen by my sister.

Coq au vin is a surprisingly difficult dish to perfect, and the kitchen had not managed it. The pale fowl was stringy and the garnishes of lardons and onions sat idly by rather than empathising, emoting, melding; what the constituent parts of that classic dish should do. Also, barely cooked thin green beans do not stand in satisfactorily for parsley-dusted croutons of fried bread.

Early on, we had spotted the savoury of French Rarebit: toasted Reblochon Fermier on potato and garlic bread. It did not eat quite as well as it reads, but it cheerfully accompanied what remained of the Western Australian bottle of Fifth Leg, Devils Lair Vineyards 1998 at £25.95, which the sommelier had advised as perhaps preferable to the more expensive second wine of Ch?teau Talbot, Connetable Talbot 1997, which we had been considering. He then allowed us to compare the two and we thought him right.

Of course, at The Don it is port, sherries and madeiras you should be exploring, and the list facilitates this. Every day, a bottle of vintage port is decanted and made available by the glass. In addition, more than a dozen bottles of vintage port can be decanted to order. Should such behaviour put you in mind of Christmas parties, note that there is a private room downstairs - a quite atmospheric room - for up to 24 guests, at a minimum charge of £1,000. Happy City Christmas.

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