Sense of deja vu at Ottolenghi clone

Brompton Quarter Cafe: Style over substance

Can you have déjà vu again? Because here's yet another Ottolenghi clone, this time in glossy Knightsbridge.

It has the lot: cool decor with fabulous white Piet Boon chandeliers; counter heaving with vivid dishes; and cake pornography: fruit tarts, brownies, croissants, pastries, all glistening lasciviously.

But, perhaps unsurprisingly, the food isn't a patch on the Islington trendsetter.

Chargrilled broccoli 'with chilli': limp, charred spears with only a fleeting suggestion of heat (five of 'em: £5.25 - that's more than a pound a stalk); roast peppers, unskinned and undercooked; red Camargue rice with artichoke that tasted of nothing but fridge; grilled 'chorizo' (hmmm...) that presented a reasonable sausage and a sizeable mark-up: £6.75 for about five slices.

The cakes were a let-down: a hefty brownie with none of that addictive cake's trademark oozy fudginess; a stodgy, workman-like cheesecake.

The waiters are annoyingly over-familiar on the one hand, and unhelpful on the other. We were told by one cloddishly flirtatious creature ('Do you have a daughter?' Grrrr) that there was only one house wine, a 'fact' later proved to be total fiction.

There's a Kenzo fabric-decked, posher downstairs but without the people-watching to divert, who could be bothered? Style over substance? In Knightsbridge? Surely not...

Brompton Quarter Cafe
Brompton Road, London, SW3 2EJ

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