Fay Maschler Reviews Wolfe

Earl Spencer (brother of the late Princess Diana) has recently voiced support for the custom of primogeniture, the right of the firstborn male child to inherit and manage a family estate. In the past, second sons might have gone into the church or military. Wolfe Conyngham, younger son of the 8th Marquess Conyngham, owner of Slane Castle in County Meath, has happily for us all opened a restaurant named after himself in All Saints Road, Notting Hill.

Those uninterested in tradition and aristos or maybe just torchbearers for gender equality can look away now and maybe watch Wolfe on YouTube cooking a chicken pie from a recipe he contributed to Cook Like a Man, the official Movember cookbook. The moustache has gone by the time I meet him in his restaurant. Eating there last Friday evening (the day after the general election, remember?

) was a blessed relief. For all I know Wolfe is a fervent Marxist but I was so glad to have discovered a completely new place through a tip-off from a friend living locally. There was no PR bumf, no competitive tweets at time of writing @wolfe_london has 32 followers nor insistent Instagrams, no frenzied media telling me what to think, no polls, just arriving at a comfortable, slightly whimsical neighbourhood restaurant that takes bookings enthusiastically and doesnt have a sound system to rival a jackhammer.

Conyngham is indistinct about his cooking story but does disclose that he did a course at Leiths, a starting point for more skilled chefs than you might suppose. He is keen, but arent we all, on noble ingredients. I think maybe the Italian module at Leiths hit home the hardest.

At the first dinner we share a Snack that extra course increasingly found on menus that could as easily be called Spend a Few More Quid of butternut and Gruyre arancini, where the threads of undulating melted cheese released by a bite make the Sicilian description suppli al telefono applicable. It is good wine-choosing food. There are ingenious ideas in Wolfes cooking such as rolling raw tuna in the sharp crunch of smashed wasabi peas before slicing into sashimi to serve with soy and sesame oil, and applying the principles of confit slowly, lowly cooking in fat to chicken thighs which gives the bird on the bone suavity and a skin to luxuriate in.

Serving them with burnt onion pure, lightly glazed carrots and tenderstem broccoli makes an ace main course taken from culinary Hymns Ancient & Modern. Replacing the skin on a tranche of pearly cod with a sheet of crisped prosciutto is not a wholly novel concept but a sound one and the underlay of chubby mussels, Jersey potatoes, tomatoes concasss and herbs in a sort of aqua pazza (crazy water) works really well. Scallops with chorizo and pea pure is a bit of a join-the-dots on the plate but gathers together in a satisfying manner.

My sister Beth, who is an exigent taster of food, praises highly the lamb rump with wild garlic, goats curd and peas. Studying the menus in front of me taken home from two suppers, the constituent items seem to have been tossed up like cards to land in different places. Assiduously peeled asparagus dressed with olive oil and lemon makes a better side dish than a starter; tabbouleh has scant tribal connection to anything else but is remarkably well put together.

On both evenings desserts are spoken rather than written. A homely Tarte Tatin falling apart on the plate seems to have come out of a different kitchen to the chocolate mousse crowned with a spun sugar cage and a pattern of leaves piped from melted chocolate as extra decoration. Both do the job, just in different ways.

A fine crme brle also deserves mention. Service veers between a chap who must surely be the understudy for intern Will Humphries in W1A No, I mean not. All right.

Cool. Good idea. Say again?

and a beautiful serene Swedish would-be actress called Salka Bachman, who introduces Ingmar Bergman on an optimistic day into the mix. Layers of detail in the interior design on both floors indicate a labour of love and on the ground floor there is a view to a verdant garden. Truly comfortable upholstered chairs issue a welcome challenge to the cultural hegemony of bare-filament light bulbs.

All Saints Road long ago ceased to be a thoroughfare where angels feared to tread. Now Wolfe sits congenially next to the laudable Book & Kitchen, where children go to read and eat wherever their place in the family. Follow Going Out on Facebook and on Twitter @ESgoingout