Published: 29 July 2010
by MATTHEW LEWIN

LE Mercury restaurant started life in 1987 as one of the chain run by Peter Ilic – the former Yugoslavian restaurateur who nearly changed the face of restaurant pricing policy in London, but failed in the face of greed on the part of everyone else.

He opened his first restaurant in Kilburn in the mid-70s and a decade later he had a chain of four or five similar places – all thriving on the Ilic formula of providing very good food at very low prices in a relaxed, Bohemiam atmosphere. The chain included the famous Just Around the Corner restaurant in Child’s Hill, where customers were invited to pay only what they thought the meal was worth.

Le Mercury is now owned by Grace Ilic, Peter’s ex-wife, and the restaurant is clearly very popular, though I was slightly disappointed by the food.

All starters are £3.95, all mains £7.45 and desserts are £2.95, and the portion sizes are good too. It started very well, with a very good blue cheese and walnut salad with a pear and a balsamic reduction for my Chief Culinary Adviser (pictured), and for me, a ravioli de mer (crayfish and lobster) with spinach in a rich shellfish sauce.

Our mains were also generous. My Adviser had a very nice breast of Barbary duck on garlic potato mash with savoy cabbage and a red wine jus. My roast saddle of lamb with grilled courgettes and a rosemary gravy was potentially very good, but it had been left warming just a little too long. 

Other mains on the menu included two interesting vegetarian dishes, as well as a rib-eye steak, a seared fillet of salmon, and crispy skinned loupe de mer (sea bass).

Le Mercury is very convenient for the Almeida Theatre, and it is open until 1am every night except Sunday, when it closes at 11.30pm.

RATING: 2 stars (out of 5)
Le Mercury, 140a Upper Street, 
Islington N1 1QY. 020 7354 4088
www.lemercury.co.uk

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