My Favourite Restaurant - Le Vacherin: Chiswick, Saturday July 2nd, 2011

The question of favourites when it comes to food is a loaded one. If someone asks me what my favourite meal is, I'm torn between the eight-year-old me saying spaghetti bolognaise, the eighteen-year-old me saying a bacon double cheeseburger from my university burger shack and the modern-day idealistic me saying a Rossini steak with a lethal injection on standby. It's nearly impossible to answer.

The same can often be said for restaurants. When people ask me what my favourite restaurant is, I'm also torn between a number of places I used to go when I was young, some of the best meals I've ever had (Royal Hospital Road in 2010 being the number one) and common sense. Common sense prevails, which is why I am happy to call Chiswick's Le Vacherin my favourite restaurant.

To me, one's favourite restaurant should be somewhere which is above average to the extent that you can have a birthday meal or a special event there. It should be somewhere that makes you want to put on your gladrags but not overdo it. It should be somewhere you feel you could eat a couple of times a month and you wouldn't get tired of. For these reasons, Le Vacherin is absolutely my favourite place to eat.

A special occasion this was: the other half and I dragged my parents, my brother and his wife to Chiswick (they don't like to come much further into London than zone five) to celebrate my birthday. We took a deep breath and sat down...

There was one blemish on the evening. My brother's main course of lamb was served lukewarm at best. It was a shame since the lamb itself was wonderfully coloured and beautifully served, even if the dish was insubstantially small. It was a real shame, especially since he (and everyone else) enjoyed the rest of the spread.

My family can be a fussy bunch, none more so than my mother, who baulks at the idea of eating anything from the sea unless it's been battered and avoids any sort of meat with any colour left on it. I was slightly concerned that a French restaurant might not agree with her, but I needn't have worried as she enjoyed a rich pea velouté with a quail's egg nestling within to start (left). It was deliciously sweet, locally-flavoured Frenchishness in a dish.

With Le Vacherin comes a certain admission that you have a weakness for the classics, so my brother, his wife and I all opted for tried and tested dishes. He went for a fried duck egg on top of potato salad and gruyere cheese (right). It was as warm, soft and comfortingly fatty as one could hope for. My sister-in-law went for the chicken liver and foie gras parfait which was one of the first things I tried at Le Vacherin and it is still great. I went for the very first thing I ever tried here - the scallops with black pudding and bacon with apple sauce - which will always have a special place in my heart. The scallops were cooked to perfection, the bacon thin and crisp, the dish a winner as it always was (above left).

The two bolters on the table for starters were my father's choice of a Bayonne ham salad and the other half's marinated octopus and razor clams. I don't mean that they were incongruous on a French brasserie's menu, but I'd never seen them on Le Vacherin's menu before and they weren't dishes I'd usually try. The ham was a bright and airy mixture of pink (from the meat), red (from the cherry tomatoes) and green (from the leaves) with some darker balsamic dressing. It was a great summer starter. The other half's octopus dish was amongst the prettiest I saw all last year (right). The octopus and clams were outstandingly fresh and had a brilliantly sharp yet subtle flavour to them. It was a dish that delivered on every front in a lasting way.

The one thing I could always say for Le Vacherin is that they do beef expertly. The other half and I shared a chateaubriand with proper thin frites, roast bone marrow, green beans and field mushroom (left). It was rare as requested, and tasted as good as the description. Absolutely outstanding stuff. My dad went for the similar choice of aged rib-eye which came with frites and béarnaise sauce. It was not quite in the same league as the chateaubriand but was a pretty good cheaper option.

My brother's lousy lamb choice was the low point, as already mentioned, but there were two other decent courses on the table to distract from it (or at least try to). A half lobster with chips was broken down with relative ease by my sister-in-law and enjoyed with gusto. Similarly, my mother's fear of having to experience a dish too racy for her tastes was rescued with a thick and creamy tagliatele with mushrooms, asparagus and parmesan. A perfect vegetarian option, even if parmesan isn't technically a vegetarian food.

By the time desserts came around, five of us were looking for something to see us off after a great meal, where my brother was looking for something to salvage the evening for him. I stepped in and advised on sharing the apple tarte tatin for two (right). It was the right decision, in that the tarte was not at all bad, meaning it was great. That is the relationship I have with French apple tarts (the pastry, not women), as you may know if you've read my work before.

Only three further desserts were eaten: a classic strawberry cheesecake, an interesting vanilla panna cotta and a bizarre carpaccio of pineapple with coconut sorbet. The first was a simply done comfort pudding which completed a relieving and satisfying three courses for my dear mother. The second was a favourite of the other half's which she put away with relish. It was presented exquisitely as is the case with most of Le Vacherin's fare and was a quirky take on a panna cotta, being far softer than some of the too-gelatinous stuff that comes up in many other places (left). The last was ordered by my brother's wife for the simple reason that it contained sorbet which I didn't really understand. Plus it came with chilli and ginger, which ended up proving a travesty to the name dessert. Still, she enjoyed it.

I don't have to say anything more, do I? I love this place, it was my family birthday meal, we all enjoyed it and it was nearly perfect. I'll be back again and again.

Le Vacherin