Madsen

A plain but quite charming Scandinavian restaurant, hard by South Kensington tube; we found the food unexciting, but of generally good quality.

Urged on by a rave review elsewhere, we finally got around to visiting this Scandinavian restaurant, which opened a few months ago, just over the road from South Kensington tube station.

We're glad we were encouraged to visit, but couldn't quite understand the 'rave'. This is certainly a useful destination, if one which - with its pleasingly plain décor - seems more of a natural for lunch than for dinner.

Attendance was sparse, however, on the day we lunched. Which is a shame, as most of the food was good. Our top recommendation would be to make a meal of the smushi - a catchy name for small open sandwiches (of which the one we most enjoyed was the egg mayonnaise).

Rather hard-edged fish cakes - though served with nicely timed new potatoes and a small salad - were less of a success, and not obviously superior to the typical home-grown version. A rhubarb 'crumble' - prettily presented cold, in a glass - might similarly have been said to have no obvious advantages over the classic à l'anglaise.

Overall, though, the experience was pleasant, and we might even go back if we were looking for lunch in the area. But a 'rave'? We must have missed something.