The Wine Factory (European)
Above: The Wine Factory, Westbourne Grove, W11
Have you ever wondered why the wines you buy from high street off-licences and supermarkets never seem to find their way onto restaurant wine lists? Or vice versa, for that matter?
Cynical diners might think (and I would agree with them) that restaurateurs do not want to show their customers just how extortionately their wines are marked up. Opacity is preferable to transparency, especially when mark-ups of 300 or 400 per cent are not uncommon: before the service charge, I might (and they do) add.
The wine list at John Brinkley’s Wine Factory, on Westbourne Grove, is a shining exception. His Hollywood Road wine shop supplies the wines ‘at retail prices’: prices which may seem a little high by off-licence standards (the house red is Norton Malbec 2006 at £10, for example), but seem positively benevolent on a restaurant list.
The long, rather cold room is unchanged, but the food has been smartened up recently: the pizzas have gone, replaced by a more modish offering which includes salad-ish, Mediterranean starters and heartier, comfort-food main courses. The specials included asparagus and hollandaise: in November?
My fish soup was a disappointment, deriving its colour and texture from tomato rather than ground-up crustaceans, and lacking depth and power, while a salad of slightly fatigued watercress and leathery slices of aubergine was perked up with very good walnuts, feta and beetroot. The wine, however – a fragrant and juicy half-bottle of St-Aubin Domaine Larue 2005 – was superb, and a bargain at £14.50.
By now, we were treating the rather ordinary food as a mere backdrop to the wine. My rather meagre magret of duck was served with undistinguished, underseasoned celeriac mash and soggy glazed carrots, but rolled pork belly with spring onion mash and Savoy cabbage was more impressive, although still underseasoned.
Pushing the boat out at the Wine Factory is a pleasurable experience. Their priciest red, at £40, is Réserve de la Comtesse 2000 (a great year), the second wine of the sublime Pichon-Longueville Comtesse de Lalande. It is a really fine mouthful of claret, full of black cherries and soft tannins, offering more than a hint of a wine I can’t afford at a very fair price.
Pudding – well, we needed something to soak up a decent half-bottle of Sauternes – was a springy, nicely-sauced toffee sponge with vanilla ice cream. Service was friendly: the tables-for-two are tiny, but we were allowed to sprawl across the next table once a critical mass of glasses and bottles had been reached. Next time, I shall stick to the kitchen’s more modest offerings – pasta, or moules marinières – and be just as extravagant with the wine. Drinking good wine without draining the wallet makes me very happy. Bill Knott
Lunch or dinner for two, with wine, around £80
The Wine Factory, 294 Westbourne Grove, Notting Hill, W11 2PS
020 7229 1877