Prima EC3

Twenty years ago, you would have been most unlikely to find a City restaurant with décor such as you might have found in Mayfair. No restaurant was allowed to set up among the money-factories if it had any feeling of West End chic or – heaven forbid – any aspect that might be thought slightly feminine. But then, in those days, you wouldn’t have found ‘City’ types, like fund managers, bidding up Mayfair office rentals to record levels. The old divisions just don’t seem to apply any more.

Look at the newcomer we review today. Though it’s just 50 yards from Fenchurch Street station, it has the sort vaguely pretty interior which would not have looked at all out of place on Bond Street as recently as, ooh, 2004. The friendly and helpful young staff could easily be working up West. Even the menu – concentrating on rather grand comfort food, especially steak – would not stand out there.

Trying to enter into the spirit of the place, your reviewer kicked off with a lobster cocktail. It offered a lot of tender meat for the money (£12, as ‘market price’ turned out to be), even if the herby dressing was not quite in harmony. Everything thereafter, however, proved a bit of a let-down. A burger and chips – surely a ‘signature’ dish for a place liked this – was cooked grey (when medium-rare had been requested) and came with a hard and unsympathetic bun, and hand-made but forgettable chips. A tarte Tatin, ordered the required 15 minutes in advance, tasted fine on top, but its base had been reduced to a soggy clump. Espresso was indifferent.

Fashions change, it seems. But proper cooking in the heart of the City? Another decade to go, it seems.