Tom Ilic
from 3 reviews
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Tom Ilic
Average Price Per Person: £42Nearest Transport: Queenstown Road / National Railway
Tom Ilic is run by the highly respected chef and offer dishes such as pigeon terrine and braised shoulder of lamb.
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Tom Ilic’s (pronounced Ilitch – he’s Serbian) eponymous restaurant sits on Queenstown Road in Battersea, sandwiched between an Argentinian place which my dining partner described succinctly as ‘crap’ and a few carpet and lighting shops. A cheery cartoon pig’s head lurches forth from the ‘o’ in the ‘Tom’, giving it the air of a motorway service station or Little Chef. Plastic creepers line the walls and electric heaters blast out dry warmth in an already stuffy space. I keep my spirits up however, with memories of rave reviews: “hearty and generous,” ” excellent value,” “not for vegetarians.” I hope it’s one of those places that just bubbles away gently, quietly turning out consistent, delicious, unpretentious grub to the locals.
It isn’t. Sadly, our meal was mediocre and one element, inedible. Things started off OK I suppose. My tartare (it’s under the lettuce) and carpaccio of beef was fine, although frustratingly drowned by a cacophony of huge flavours: salad dressed liberally with truffle oil, sticky balsamic, bolshy parmesan. All lovely things but a powerful gang which swiftly beat the beef into submission. My friend’s starter of roast bone marrow (a single, squat stump) came with – you’ve guessed it – parsley, caper and shallot salad but no toast to spread it on and sat awkwardly alongside veal sweetbreads.
The ‘Degustation of Pork’ should have been great, seeing as Tom is considered something of an expert in cooking the swine; what I received was clunky, disjointed and disappointing. Two lobes of pink fillet appeared juicy and inviting, but were surprisingly dry. A rolled segment doused in gravy suffered from the same problem. A clumsy quinelle of mash was, surprise, surprise, dry and could be cut like a cake, each mealy slice working its way around the mouth before I washed it down with some of the (perfectly decent) house white. A kromeski was much better – excellent, even; crisp crumb encased soft shreds of flesh. I could have eaten a plateful. A supporting mound of lightly pickled cabbage was a pleasant foil to so much meat and black pudding had been treated well, boasting crunchy edges and soft fatty nuggets within. All redeeming features of the dish were overpowered however, by a bully of a spring roll (containing more of the shredded stuff) that was so sopping with grease it was simply inedible. My friend said it made him feel sick.
The time arrived to brave desserts and I was met with the familiar problem of wanting both cheese and ice cream. We shared cheese (nothing significant to report), and the only dish which had an ice cream element: a cheesecake and chocolate affair. The cheesecake was forgettable; was it vanilla? White chocolate? A scoop of black pepper ice cream on top was far more interesting, as were some poached baby pears. In fact, just those two elements together would make a confident and charming dessert.
The ethos of Tom Ilic is supposedly to produce unfussy, generous, boldly flavoured food at low prices but instead I found it confused. The number of elements on the plate is at odds with this approach and attempts at more complicated arrangements such as my degustation lacked finesse. Service was sweet, water was tap and the restaurant itself perfectly adequate, if a little dated. Without doubt the best thing about the meal though, was the fact that my friend, Chris, had bid £100 for it (considerably more than it was worth), as part of the recent Blaggers’ Banquet event, and so did a brilliant and generous thing by giving £100 to charity. Disappointing meal aside, that’s money well spent.
I first tried it at a Parisian brasserie specialising in the food of Alsace-Lorraine, Chez Jenny. A fatty, nausea inducing, glutinous, and chunky mess, swamped in vinegar. Not good, I have to admit to you now, though I was darned if I was going to admit it then.
But the version I ordered at Bibendum, was a different ball game altogether. Obviously prepared with great skill, the sweetbreads melted on the tongue, and the piquant vinaigrette gave off just the right balance.
On Friday night, The Girl very kindly treated me to dinner at Tom Ilic's excellent restaurant in Queenstown Road, close to Giles Gilbert Scott's masterpiece, Battersea Power Station.
The first thing to point out is that Mr Ilic's restaurant is good value for money. I've worked out that he probably manages to keep his prices down by buying the less fashionable cuts of meat, and then cooking them with care. Like Bibendum, the menu concentrates on classic French country cooking with a sophisticated twist.
For the first course, I had croustillants of calf's head with sweetbreads; and for the main course, scallops with honeyed pork belly. Both were delicious, and presentation was top notch.
Towards the end of the evening, we were joined by Tom Ilic himself, who told us that his restaurant has been up and running for five months. He seems to be pretty booked up at the moment, so it looks like the word has spread. I wish him every success.
The lunch menu (no a la carte was available at lunch) is a very fair £14.95 for three courses, with a choice of three dishes for each course. Sometimes restaurant lunch menus are only superficially bargains, with the very cheapest ingredients on offer, but here were scallops and sea bass in amongst the lentil soup, so it is hard to argue with the pricing. In the evening starters £4.75 - £7.50, main courses £9.75 - £13.50, desserts mostly £4.50. The wine list veers strongly towards France, but there are some offerings from outside e.g. Chateau Musar at £45, and a few pleasant New World choices; there are five simple dessert wines by the 100 ml glass (why some restaurateurs insist on being stingy with dessert wine servings is beyond me, but that is another story). Bread is, unusually, home-made, of two varieties; I found both to have pleasant texture and had a decent salt content, but were seemed to lack much in the way of taste, a little odd given they are made fresh each day rather than bought-in.
My starter of goat cheese salad had a nice piece of warm goat cheese in good condition and reasonable fresh leaves that would have benefited by further dressing; however the dish suffered from rock-hard croutons (2/10 overall if I overlook the crouton, for which a diamond drill would have been more appropriate than a knife and fork). A trio of scallops were seared a little too hard, losing a little of their sweet flavour in the process. These were served with a nicely cooked piece of honey-roast belly pork, some decent spinach and some rather tasteless puree of what purported to be Jerusalem artichokes but did not appear to be by the colour and in reality tasted of very little indeed (2/10). Some slightly superfluous vegetables sold separately were light and correctly cooked French beans, and some pleasant boiled potatoes.
Pear tarte tatin had reasonable pastry but the pear was not sufficiently caramelised, served with cinnamon ice cream that had good texture but again rather lacked in cinnamon taste. Coffee (at £2.20) was not very impressive, a little bitter. Service was friendly, though the waitress forgot to bring a fork for dessert and was nowhere to be seen; since the restaurant was literally empty we simply helped ourselves to some from a nearby table, but given that the place was not exactly buzzing this seemed a little careless.
Overall I can see this place succeeding as a pleasant local restaurant in an area that needs better places, but I was a little surprised by the minor slips in the cooking given Tom Ilic’s previous track record (and he was there in the kitchen today). My knowledgeable dining companion seemed to fare a little better than I did with his dishes, but a restaurant kitchen needs to be consistent in its delivery.
