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Terence Conran’s Strategic New Restaurant

LONDON - Terence Conran’s new Fleet Street restaurant has a lot going for it: Goldman Sachs’s offices are across the road. Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer is a few doors along. KPMG is nearby. It’s hospitality heaven.

When economic recovery takes hold, Lutyens will be ready. The private dining rooms are waiting in the basement, where there’s a bar that’s to become a club for which membership will be £180 ($295). At street level, the Lutyens Bar and Charcuterie Counter is open from 7:30a.m. to midnight.

The pleasing thing is that Lutyens — housed in Reuters’ old London headquarters — is so good. From the flower displays that greet you through the stylish salt-and-pepper pots to the beautifully lit dining room, you find the focus on design and attention to detail that you might expect in a new Conran venue.

For lovers of art and culture, there’s a painting by the pop artist Allen Jones featuring a flash of stocking tops.

There’s going to be a sushi bar next to the crustaceans, an idea Conran picked up at the Mandarin Grill in Hong Kong.

The menu is about as in tune with our times as a Michael Jackson album, which is to say not contemporary but classic and of the moment.

Lutyens serves brasserie favourites such as fish soup and steak tartare, and there’s a main of chicken from Les Landes with sage-and-onion stuffing that’s like a Sunday lunch from your childhood, only better. (Well, better than mine.)

Juicy Oysters

There are fat and juicy oysters — Duchy of Cornwall, Carlingford Lough, Maldon — at £23.50 a dozen, and a generous bloody mary, too, served in a tankard. The wine list is a pleasure. Among those I tried was the complex Clos Floridene 2006 Graves white (£44); the dry Riesling “Kamptaler Terrassen” Willi Brundlmayer 2005 (£37) and the Yannick Amirault Bourgueil “Le Grand Clos” 2007, a snip at £33.

The slight letdown comes in uneven service and food. The New Zealand sommelier, Andrew Connor, was excellent, as was our Eastern European waitress. But it seemed to take forever to get cocktails from the bar to the table and, at times, up to a dozen staffers were standing around not appearing to do much or to spot empty glasses or empty plates.

(It may be that some are told to stay away from critics and VIPs. I recall a lunch at Tom’s Kitchen when I pointed out to the manager that the actress Jane Asher was there. “Oh God, look who’s serving her,” he said and dashed across the room. One of my guests at Lutyens was the chef Pierre Koffmann, a formidable presence. Koffmann spotted that the cutlery was the same design he used at La Tante Claire.)

Limp Chips

The haddock in the fish and chips (£12.50) was everything you might want: soft and flakey, with light, crisp batter. The chips, by contrast and not the contrast you would want, were limp. If you picked one up to eat it, you’d need to hold it at nose level to make mouth contact, by which time the ketchup will have slid its way down and onto your shirt.

While the fish soup was under-seasoned and the pastry in the beautiful feuillete of quail eggs was well done, the Lobster Mousse was a rich, luxurious treat. The chef is David Burke, formerly of Bibendum and Le Pont de la Tour.

The chicken (£16 for a half) was a useful reminder of how that particular bird should taste, the veal cordon bleu is a great retro dish and if you’re feeling more adventurous, there’s roast rabbit, wrapped in bacon, with mustard. I’d like to try these dishes again once the kitchen settles in.

The desserts — there are about a dozen of them — are among the best-executed items on the menu. They run with the retro theme and include peach melba, blackcurrant jelly with madeleines and creme Chantilly as well as creme brulee.

Elegant Classics

So what if not everything’s great in these early days? The dining room — with an open kitchen — is light and elegant; the menu is full of classics that people want to eat; the prices aren’t greedy. House Champagne is £9.75, the plat du jour is £14.50. Ice cream is £5.

For me, it’s one of those situations where there’s more to the pleasure of an establishment than just what appears on your plate. If the various elements coalesce successfully — and the official opening was June 29, so time enough — Lutyens may become a first-class restaurant. Just like Boundary, that other Conran venue, which opened at the start of the year.

At the age of 77, Conran — with his business partner Peter Prescott — is getting good at this sort of thing.

Lutyens, 85 Fleet Street, London EC4 1AE. Tel. +44-20-7583- 8385 or click on http://www.lutyens-restaurant.com/.

(Richard Vines is the chief food critic for Bloomberg News. Opinions expressed are his own.)