Hereford Road, Notting Hill, London

£40 per head, inc wine

There's much to admire about Hereford Road, Tom Pemberton's modern-British venture. On the site of a former butchers, it's the type of place that so many London neighbourhoods lack: inviting, unpretentious and good value. Some feat for snooty Notting Hill.

Pemberton, the former head chef at St John Bread and Wine, has devised a formula of cheap cuts and seasonal, British produce: innovation and frills are left well alone, which is just as it should be. So what could possibly go wrong?

Well, to be fair, 18 of the 20 dishes we ordered were spot on—it was just the two I plumped for that were deeply flawed. If somebody made a mistake in the kitchen, it unerringly found its way onto my plate. For one night only, I was a magnet for calamity. Crab on toast is pretty difficult to ruin. Source some decent crab and you're three-quarters of the way there. But if you burn the toast, all you're left with is the taste of carbon. They might as well have topped it with coal shavings.

Mistake number two was roping in a fellow diner to share a whole roasted rabbit. She will probably never split a dish with me ever again. Rabbits are pretty lean creatures. You'll know that if you've ever seen one run. Overcook it a fraction and you risk disaster, because there's not enough fat to keep the meat from drying out. I couldn't even cut this bunny, let alone eat it. It was a lame rubber duck in a latex jacket. They took it off the bill. All that was left was the vicarious enjoyment of slow-cooked ox cheek, fleshy mallard and the self-satisfied glow of an otherwise happy table.

David Woodward