Jan Moir Are You Ready To Order

Tom Aikens’ new ethical chippy opened this week, a rigorously green enterprise which aims to turn our popular national dish of fish and chips into an environmentally responsible experience. My fear is that this means goodbye to over-fished cod, haddock and anything else remotely delicious and hello to pollock, ling, megrim sole, flounder and dull old dab. The reason why these second division specimens are not over-fished is obvious; they don’t taste as nice as the other lot. Yet Aikens is right in his determination that we have to stop the wholesale plunder of diminishing white fish stocks in British waters. Let’s leave that to quota hoppers like the Spanish or the Dutch and console ourselves with a little bit of deep fried grey gurnard instead. Gurnard? In Chelsea, the richest borough in the UK and home to some of the most expensive properties in the world? Most locals in Chelsea wouldn’t even feed gurnard to their cats.

Aikens’ objective is to change such attitudes. While it is hard not to be cynical about celebrity chefs and their pet eco-ethics, he seems to have become genuinely radicalised about safeguarding fish stocks, minimising ecological impact and keeping his corporate carbon footprint low. I’m sobbing just reading the heart-rending, 500-word mission statement on the inside cover of his new menu, with all its talk of cultural change, guarding the planet and saving energy. ‘Food has so many values to me,’ writes Tom, ‘food makes the world go around.’ The teardrops keep on falling – but only because I’ve just been charged £1.50 for a mug of hot water with a teabag on the side. Exactly whose energy are they trying to save?

Biodegradable cutlery

Tom’s Place is just along the road from Aikens’ eponymous Michelin star restaurant and Tom’s Kitchen, his popular brasserie. Situated on the former site of Monkey’s, an idiosyncratic game restaurant, it has eat-in tables on the first and ground floor and a typical stainless steel fish and chip counter in the latter. Working behind this is a cook who looks as fed up as you might expect someone to be who has come to work for Tom Aikens and finds himself shoveling chips into cartons instead of doing interesting things with foie gras and ribbons of leek. An electronic board bleeps with news of the catch of the day, while a stack of smart, recycled paper napkins, boxes and bags stand in wait for orders. The takeaway cutlery is made of biodegradable starch, the tables and chairs from recycled plastic and the reservations policy? That’s reprocessed, too.

‘Can I have a table, please?’ says S.

‘There’s no booking,’ replies a manager.

‘No, I mean now.’

‘Of course,’ he says, and takes him upstairs, where S asks if he can sit at a nice table by the window.’

‘No, it’s reserved.’

‘I thought you said you couldn’t book tables.’

‘Oh, some people came in earlier and requested it,’ he says, airily.

Although this is the kind of social hypocrisy that makes customers, not fish, an endangered species, we plough on with an order of cod and chips; pollock and chips and a side order of Lincolnshire fish pie. The eat-in menu is short; there are no starters and no puddings, except for a choice of eight different homemade ice creams, including pistachio, marmalade and raspberry ripple flavours.

The fish itself is battered or pan-fried – the latter including mackerel and line-caught sea bass – and there are also fishcakes, squid and breaded scampi which, at £20, is the most expensive item on the menu. Sides include a chip buttie and mushy peas, with a solo portion of chips costing £3. Bowls of moules mariniere and bouillabaisse are also available, as is a preparation of Newlyn monkfish and charlotte potatoes in a creamy saffron sauce which we tried as a take-away earlier in the week. Rich, indulgent and spiked with capers, it is served with a generous whack of lovely monkfish and is a startlingly decadent chippie take out; even if a little too creamy.

Back in the restaurant, the chips are fried in beef dripping, while the fish is, I think, cooked in oil. Aikens’ batter is made with a mixture of carbonated water and beer, which wraps around the fish with a whispery crunch and has just the right amount of friable texture. S thought our specimens too greasy by half and the chips not nearly crisp enough. The cod is from Alaska – certified by the Marine Stewardship Council – and it has a good, stiff flaky texture but is pretty tasteless while the pollock is downright unpleasant, its soft texture made even mushier by the necessary fierceness of the cooking process. The Lincolnshire fish pie is a tiny strip of undistinguished fish sandwiched between two slices of potato, then battered and deep-fried. It seems pointless. Nevertheless, you do get a decent piece of fish inside a neat envelope of batter; not the usual great slipper of carbo-puff with a little toe of fish inside. But even that won’t stop many complaining about the price of Tom’s contemporary take on fish and chips in the same way that a certain type of man always complains about the price of a modern haircut. Yet Aikens has a knack of appealing to well-heeled west Londoners who eat out a lot; both his formal and informal restaurants are a masterclass in restrained taste and good fun. Here the décor is a jazzy red and black - with beautiful scarlet chairs, as glossy as lipsticks. It is commendable that Tom’s Place is supporting British fishermen in general and those of Newlyn in Cornwall in particular – although I don’t understand the repeated statement on the menu that fishermen ‘always get the blame’. For what?

Meanwhile, traceability and ethics are important, but will people buy into Tom Aikens’ dream of an environmentally friendly chippie? I wonder. The restaurant has televisions screening Aikens' documentary about sustainable fish on a continuous loop. Like his Lincolnshire pie, this kind of relentless propaganda becomes a little hard to swallow over dinner. At the moment, Tom’s Place is too greasy, too expensive, too preachy and too self-consciously green for comfort. Even worse; all the wine is English to minimise the restaurant’s carbon footprint. That’s enough of a message in a bottle for me. PLEASE NOTE THIS RESTAURANT HAS NOW CLOSED...

• Tom’s Place, 1 Cale Street, London SW3 3QT. Tel: 020 7351 1806. Fish and chips from £11.50. Childrens menu available.