Luca, a new foodie destination in Surbiton

To many, Surbiton is one of those jokey places - it was once made famous as the epitome of suburbia in the BBC sitcom "The Good Life". But Luca is located in an avenue of maple trees, and in summer if you blink, it could just remind you for an instant of Aix-en-Provence.

With the nearby attractions of Hampton Court Palace and Sandown Park Racecourse, there's been a restaurant on this site for many years. It was once quite a renowned destination called Chez Max when Max Makarian and his formidable wife ran it. Then it rather lost its way and went downhill.

Since September of last year (1998), it's been taken over by some very bright young people who've quickly stamped a whole new image on the place. It took Surbiton a little while to recover from the shock, but now Luca is becoming a popular destination for locals and visitors alike.

Head Chef is Ann O'Carroll who cooked for Peter Gordon at The Sugar Club before moving to Nobu London, the famous modern Japanese restaurant on Hyde Park Corner. That's where she met up with Luca's manager, Jason Starmer.

Their approach is firmly based on carefully sourced high quality ingredients, such as special goat cheese from Neals Yard for the Gold Cross goat cheese brochettes, or the Australian reef fish which comes with roasted sweet potatoes.

Four of us visited on a windy Tuesday evening in early March, and the place was nearly full and certainly buzzing!

A pressed terrine of multi-layered grilled vegetables was expertly constructed so that when cut across the grain, it retained both its structure and the identities of its component flavours. At Luca they are generous, I enjoyed not only the terrine, but accompaniments of homemade oven dried tomatoes that were yummy plus some slices of buffalo mozzarella which provided a total contrast, a sort of palate separator. Another starter that drew warm praise was marinated skate with courgettes and celeriac and a lovely sauce gibriche which is made with chopped hard boiled egg slackened with a touch of vinegar to give it a tangy flavour.

A Smoked haddock brandade had been infused with a hot chilli oil that my other guest found a little overpowering, but he liked the overall construction of the dish with its base of potato salad and topping of poached egg, the traditional accompaniment to smoked haddock. The seared, marinated beef fillet is a favourite here and it's not hard to see why. Apart from the quality of the beef, there are so many other sharply focussed flavours: a spoonful of baba ganoush (eggplant purée) here, some capers there, a scattering of marcona almonds, a decorative but tasty drizzle of basil oil all made telling contributions.

The choice of main dishes is, very sensibly, relatively limited in the interests of keeping everything as fresh as possible; there are two fish dishes, two meat and one vegetable dish - a delicious sounding Pumpkin polenta cake with spinach, goat cheese and tomato and chilli jam. Two of us plumped for roast monkfish, served with a spicy chorizo sausage on a stew of chickpeas, calamari and tomatoes. The fish sat on a base of kale (a cabbage variety) topped with a deft touch of aïoli. The detail and thought that had gone into this dish was amply repaid in its enjoyment.

Grilled breast of cornfed chicken was enhanced with garlic mushrooms, bok choy and lentils, and the spicy peanut sauce was miles removed from the safe all-purpose gloop you get with those DIY satay kits. My Pan fried seabass was nice, but a little overcooked (timing such a disparate sequence of dishes must be a chef's nightmare!), but all the accompaniments were carefully integrated, every one completely different from all other dishes, so no cooking by numbers here. With my bass I got some wonderful roast beetroot, parsnips and a topping of skordalia, a finely sieved, slack potato purée with garlic and olive oil - to die for.

There's so much individual detail in these dishes, a kaleidoscope of vivid and sharply focussed flavours that, at my age, I wonder how Annie and her team (one sous-chef Chris, the architect of the faultless terrine!) can keep up this intense activity without burn-out! But they're young and their enthusiasm knows no bounds. Puddings are good but not great - even all their energy can't make up for the lack of a good pastrychef - but it's all a matter of scale at present. At this rate it won't be long before the brigade simply has to expand to cope with the demand!

Service is friendly and unobtrusive and Jason is passionate about his wines. Appropriately, there's a good selection of powerful New World wines to challenge and complement such tasty cuisine. Having said that, we found the Gros Manseng White of Alain Brumont - the self-styled "d'Artagnan" of Gascony - was well able to sustain the punches delivered by the starters. My choice of the lovely Oregon Firesteed Pinot Noir was less successful - great with my seabass - but more easily demolished by my fellow diners' chorizo or spicy peanut sauce. So ask for hefty Zinfandels or Argentine Malbecs.

Luca is all set to become the one of the most exciting destinations for South West London and Surrey diners.

Clifford Mould - March 1999

Luca - Modern British Restaurant
85 Maple Road, Surbiton, Surrey
Open Tuesday to Saturday 6pm - 10pm
Lunch Wednesday to Sunday, (Sunday Brunch 11.30 - 2.30pm)
Tel: 020 8399 2365

The cost of your meal:
Starters cost either side of five pounds, mains between ten and thirteen pounds and puddings are under a fiver. Alain Brumont Gros Manseng £12.50, Firesteed Pinot Noir £21.80.

Set price lunch and early evening menus:
2 course for £12.95, 2 courses for £15.95 (for orders placed by 7.30pm Tuesday - Thursday, and by 7.00pm Friday and Saturday)