Hunting the Fox in Chislehurst

10 April 2012

This review was published in August 2002

What is Chislehurst? Is this leafy townette a part of London, or is it actually Kent countryside? Through the trees at the bottom of the high street there is nothing but green pastures as far as the eye can see.

A friend who grew up in the nearby, but less salubrious Orpington said I would find Chislehurst very fancy. It is certainly expensive: big houses, loads of sports cars.

Foxes Brasserie is a place where the area's relaxing professionals come to play after hours. There are lots of spotlights and black venetian blinds, bowls of olives, exposed wine racks, dark wooden floorboards. Every neighbourhood with any degree of affluence has somewhere like this. It was quiet on a Monday night, but what tables there were seemed to be happy and jolly.

The menu is long and wide-reaching. Long menus scream 'out of the freezer' to me: if the lone chef could pull off some good food, I would be impressed. In addition there is a set menu, not bad value with three courses for £15.95.

We shared some blinis with gravadlax and smoked salmon: the fish was nothing special but there was plenty of it. Sadly, the same couldn't be said of the blinis, we had to fight over three tiny, cold ones that had come straight out of a packet. Bizarrely, basil oil had been drizzled over the fish, despite the dill on the gravadlax.

Basil is something of a motif - it cropped up in spicy tomato soup, which was fine; on a rocket and parmesan salad, which was also only fine. There it was again on my main course of a slightly overcooked piece of grilled salmon with spinach; again all I can say is it was fine. Suburban chum's rack of lamb was perfectly cooked, but the mash was a watery letdown.

If Foxes was in London I would take its over-priced, mid-quality food and somewhat intractable Turkish waiter as a serious insult. If it was in the country I would take its urban brasserie affectations as unnecessarily pretentious. But as Chislehurst is suburbia, I will not judge it too harshly. Had they employed some fun young staff, dropped the prices a tad, sharpened up and shortened the menu, I would have liked it so much more.

Foxes Restaurant
High Street, Chislehurst, BR7 5AF

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