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If the name Nigel Platts-Martin draws a blank, don't worry. Most of his 3,300 weekly customers haven't heard of him either. He's the invisible, unsung godfather of the London restaurant scene. Ever since splitting with Marco Pierre White, whom he launched at Harvey's in Wandsworth, Platts-Martin has built up his own group that tops Harden's vox-pop restaurant guide, outshining even Marco's constellation. Chez Bruce in what was Harvey's, The Glasshouse in Kew and La Trompette in Chiswick bring West End standards to suburbia. A fourth restaurant, The Square in Mayfair, raises those standards ever higher. For an amateur turned pro who has never cleared a plate in anger, Platts-Martin hasn't done badly.
I cornered him backstage at La Trompette, his newest restaurant. He and Helena Hell, his strikingly named and improbably beautiful Swedish sommelier, were pairing an anthology of charcuterie with wines.
"We do this each week at all our restaurants," he explains. "I like my staff to be knowledgeable. There are very few people like Helena in this industry. She's personable and she has the advantage of not being French."
This is typical of Platts-Martin's perfectionist zeal. While other restaurateurs rotate fantasies of flags on the A-Z, critical mass and stock market flotations, Platts-Martin prefers to compare notes on an obscure Paraguayan Chardonnay with a sommelier.
His stamp is gimmick-free modern classicism washed with excellent wines and polished by friendly, informed service. But he is hungry for more. Not for more restaurants, just better. "Significantly, my favourites - Taillevent and Arpege in Paris -...