Cafe Rouge, Kensington

I have been to the Cafe Rouge on Kensington Church Street many times.  Yes, it's a chain and no, the interior is not particularly inspiring but the food has always been good and High St Kensington has such a dearth of good restaurants (please do inform me if I am missing a corker).  Anyway, this was the reasoning behind a catch up with two friends here.  The service has always been friendly too, incidentally.

We started with some house red wine, which was very good, and the waiter made a little cheer when we decided to have another bottle.  At this point, we thought it may be wise to have some food.  One friend skipped, another had a croque monsieur and I had fishcakes.  The croque monsieur looked good - a generous size on good bread with lots of cheese and some nice ham.  Sadly my fishcakes didn't hit the mark.  There were two, and they were quite a good size, but they were so dry and mostly padded out with potato.  I managed to find some flaky chunks of overcooked salmon nestled in there somewhere.  The lime and coriander mayonnaise was fine, and the fries were very good - lovely and thin and crispy.

It was busy for a Monday night yet we had no trouble with service, which always puts me in a better frame of mind about a place.  But still... I think here, stick to classics.

One course and half a bottle of wine: £18 per head

Value: 6/10

Service: 8/10

Atmosphere: 7/10

Food: 6/10

SCORE: 27/40

Cafe Rouge, 2 Lancer Square, Kensington Church Street, London, W8 4EH.  Tel: 020 79384200.