Getting your Goan desserts

This review was first published in October 1999

Next to a hotel - what was The St James's Court, now leased to Crowne Plaza - but not of it, is the new Indian restaurant QUILON occupying the site that was Auberge de Provence. Owned by Taj International Hotels and masterminded by Adi Modi, who launched Bombay Brasserie, Quilon takes as its culinary theme the coastal cooking of southern India.

Chef is Aylur V Sriram, who made a name for himself in India at the southern west-coast restaurant Kakravalli and at the Taj West End hotel in Bangalore. His menu is considerably more diverting than most Indian-inspired compilations and in the detail such as lively fresh chutneys, a glass of rasam (a spicy, tamarind-sour broth) served mid-course, appams (rice-flour pancakes aka hoppers) and the excellent crisp snacks and breads, up there with the very best.

We arrived at Quilon humming tunes from The Pajama Game, currently playing at The Victoria Palace, which, for all its lukewarm reviews, I found delightful, endearing and somehow reassuring. Among the first courses tried, best were pepper shrimps fried in a thin, sparky batter then mixed into a spicy tomato and onion masala, and a half of partridge (£4.75) baked with an intricate spice paste.

In the main course we were perhaps foolish to choose meat dishes rather than fish or shellfish. Guinea fowl salan was subtle - so subtle it could have been chicken - but Southern Canara lamb curry fell victim to that tendency of curries to end up as just a little bowl of brown stew. Spinach poriyal, made with shredded greens mixed with mustard seeds, chillies, split Bengal gram and fresh-grated coconut, was splendid, but in the mushroom masala the chilli powder had not been sufficiently cooked out.

Goan desserts include the labour-intensive stack of pancakes called bibinca, and dodhol, a fabulous fudgy confection based on jaggery, irresistible when served with crackedpepper ice-cream. Wine prices are relatively restrained. Cloudy Baywatch notes the Chardonnay at £29.50 but we thought the South African Simonsig Pinotage '98 at £21.50 a very good foil for the spicing. Colours used in the revamped dining rooms are evocative of the subcontinent, but the overall impression is also a reminder that in India the best food outside homes is found in hotels. Service is assiduous.

Quilon
41 Buckingham Gate, SW1E 6AF