REAL TASTE OF FLORENCE

Mark Taylor finds lunch is a little on the miserly side for the price tag ...

ON a sticky July lunchtime, the steamy sounds of Jane Birkin whispering Je T’aime and Brigitte Bardot singing about Harley Davidson motorcycles greeted us as we arrived at Les Enfants Terribles.

Opposite the quayside with its lobster pots and fishing nets, this small French restaurant in Weymouth’s old docks has a view of the pastel-coloured Regency houses lining pretty Nothe Parade close to Weymouth Sailing Club.

A small metal statue of the Eiffel Tower on a pile of French bistro cookery books and sea blue and white walls provides an authentic Gallic edge to the light and airy room with its views of ship masts.

Like so many thriving coastal resorts, Weymouth has a split identity. The seafront may be the place to go for Mr Whippy ice creams and vindaloo-flavoured sticks of rock but the old docks boasts some stunning architecture and retains the feel of a working harbour, which is the ideal setting for Eric Tavernier’s seafoodfocused restaurant.

Before opening Les Enfants Terribles in 2015, this French chef worked all over the world, including the Alps, London, New Zealand and United Arab Emirates. He also spent time as Rupert Murdoch’s private chef.

If you believe online reviews, Les Enfants Terribles is currently one of the best restaurants in the town – even David Beckham ate here last year when visiting the area to film a TV commercial – and it was doing brisk trade when we visited on a Tuesday lunchtime.

We had booked but a sudden rush of walk-ins seemed to catch the kitchen on the back foot. In the open kitchen, Tavernier was still in his T-shirt and jeans, breaking off from the cooking to answer the phone when the only waitress was taking orders.

Things got off to a sluggish start and we waited a good 35 minutes for our starters to arrive, despite being the first people to order, but then a line at the bottom of the menu states ‘our dishes are cooked with all the love required for the perfect meal and a little patience may be required’.

The lunch menu is a simpler, more holidaymaker-friendly offering compared to the evening when you can

expect dishes like roasted salmon topped with tomato and vanilla salsa served with saffron potato and lime butter sauce or whole roasted rainbow trout with toasted almonds and garlic butter.

A starter of shelled prawns and tomato salad (£8.95) was topped with some unadvertised caviar and the prawns were perched on a ripe tomato salad dressed with the sort of properly punchy, in-your-face vinaigrette you only really get from French chefs who have been cooking for years.

More delicate was a Portland crab salad with tomato, cucumber and mixed leaves, although the amount of picked white crab meat mixed in with the diced avocado and anaemic tomato was parsimonious beneath the heap of salad leaves. For £10.95, I expected more crab for the price, especially as it’s a local specialty and in abundance at the moment.

Described as ‘chef Eric’s signature dish’, a baked fillet of seabass with garlic potato (£13.95) was also on the miserly side for the price tag.

Presented in the foil parcel it was cooked in, the tiny fillet of fish was hiding under a carpet of sliced carrot and fennel with sprigs of thyme and slices of orange, but despite this it was one dimensional and on the bland side.

My daughter’s cod and chips with tartare sauce (£9.95) was faultless though. The fish was thick-flaked and juicy within its breadcrumbed carapace and the hand-cut chips were as crisp and salty as they should be.

A shared dessert of chocolate delice and crème fraîche (£7.50) was fine if a little too sweet and cloying. The accompanying bite-size pieces of poached pear were uneven and the raspberries had been squashed on the plate – it was all a bit cackhanded.

Our lunch at Les Enfants Terribles was by no means perfect, and there was some lopsided cooking and ambitious pricing, but it’s a restaurant with enough old-school Gallic charm to make this quayside seafood bistro decidedly more Dieppe than Dorset.

RATING 3/5

Les Enfants Terribles, 19 Custom House Quay, Weymouth, DT4 8BG

Tel: 01305 772270 les-enfants-terribles.co.uk

A starter of shelled prawns and tomato salad (£8.95) was topped with some unadvertised caviar