Fish in a Tie review by The Professor
Restaurant names are important. Usually, they tell you a lot about the place. Is it pretentious? Is it a dive? Are the waiters going to be dressed in suits which cost more than your house? Is it 'family friendly' and going to be stuffed full of overweight, screaming children who enjoy nothing better than running into the legs of your table and spilling your drink? Names can often give you a big clue about whether you want to spend your hard-earned cash in the establishment or if you would rather leave it well alone.
'Fish in a Tie', though, doesn't give much away. A brief examination of the restaurant's logo (a fish in a...erm...tie) doesn't help either. Glancing around the surroundings, though, doesn't fill you with confidence. Fish in a Tie nestles on the 'wrong' side of Clapham Junction station, flanked by looming, ominous-looking estates: the kind you see being raided in 'the Bill'. By the time you get to the restaurant, though, you've either acclimatised to your surroundings, or you're running so fast, that they've ceased to matter.
On arriving, my thoughts were as follows:
1. This had better be good to make all that worthwhile.
2. Why's that kid in the hooded top staring at me?
3. Maybe we'll get a taxi back
Huddling through the door as hastily as we could, however, we were not disappointed. The decor is, to say the least, eclectic, but charming. Most immediately surprising were the staff, though. In a smallish establishment like this, you would expect average service, but nothing more than that. At Fish in a Tie, the waiting staff were attentive, witty, knowledgeable about the food and wine and very eager to please. The atmosphere was laid back without seeming lazy and although the seating arrangements were 'intimate', to say the least, after a little while, this didn't seem to matter.
As for the food itself, I was quite taken aback. At the price, I expected average plates of MSG-infused slop, averagely cooked by a kitchen brigade imported into the country from Romania in the back of a lorry. What I got was one of the best plates of calamari I have ever had. Perfectly, unpretentiously cooked, piled high enough that this starter could have been a main course, it melted in the mouth.
Things were looking up.
The steak continued the trend. A tasty, rich source complemented a good cut of meat very well. The accompanying vegetables were nothing to write home about, but then I didn't care. I had paid less than £10 for it, so I wasn't in a mood to complain. The wine may also have helped in that respect...
Desert rounded things off perfectly. It was apple pie. It's hard to get apple pie wrong. But it's also hard to get it right. This one was bang on. Crispy pastry, tasty apples. You can't ask for any more than that.
Fish in a Tie served up some truly outstanding home-cooked food. It was friendly, fantastically cheap and the food was memorable. The area around Clapham Junction station does a good line in highly pretentious, overpriced restaurants, where you can happily pay £15 for your bottle of water alone. Fish in a Tie is the perfect antidote: tasty, hearty food, for next to nothing. For what it's worth, in the last two months I have eaten out roughly 12 times. The meal I had there is the only one I can remember.
Go there as soon as you can. Just make sure you have your running shoes with you...
Thursday, February 07, 2008
Overall rating 
Food 9 | Service 10 | Atmosphere 9 | Value for money 10
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