Brit bites: Shed your snobbery

CUISINE: An english chef promises a taste of old England, Raj-style and Anglo-Indian cuisines.

When you think of super chefs, you would probably think of at least one name out of Britain "" Delia Smith, Gordon Ramsay, Nigella Lawson or Jamie Oliver "" all of whom are familiar at least to TV audiences.

On the other hand, when you think of British food, you probably think of a question mark: Is there any at all? The French would, of course, say a dismissive "non". We Indians would gleefully say "curry", or "chicken tikka masala", national dish by common consensus.

But if you were nostalgic for fish and chips or boarding-school throwback bread and butter pudding, would you still get it in global melting-pot London?

"Sure", says Andrew Whiffen, (British) executive chef at the Oberoi. And he is not just talking about sandwiches either. (The story goes that the Earl of Sandwich, a hardened gambler, came up with one when he asked his valet to fetch him a slab of meat between two pieces of bread at a restaurant because he was so engrossed in play that he was loathe to move.)

Instead, there seems to be renewed interest in traditional food in the UK today, particularly fresh farm produce, and local farmers markets that had lost out to the supermarkets are making a comeback.

The other places, Whiffen says, that are making a fashionable comeback are gourmet pubs. The kinds that are whipping up local dishes probably made by the chef's grandmother and her generation, but no longer available in most homes.

"The drinks are good here but the food is equally great," says the chef. These are pubs then that will finally serve you good roast (in the absence of a traditional family inviting you over on a Sunday), shepherd's pie and smoked haddock with poached egg.

However, if you are not visiting the UK this summer, where can you find a sampler? Whiffen is hoping to popularise his native cuisine in India with a whole range of dishes (60-70) including not just staples from old England but also Raj-style and Anglo-Indian creations.

For my part, I went through a tasting menu of some dishes closest to the chef's heart: The London Particular, a thick pea and ham soup that got its name from the thick blanket of smog that covered the city at the time of the industrial revolution, is greatly recommended.

Then there is the cottage pie "" if you like shepherd's pie (which I am afraid I don't) with the same potatoes-and-cheddar crust but using tenderloin instead of lamb mince. There is the jelly-like pork brawn, if you have the stomach for it, and, of course, there's fish and chips. Here, Whiffen serves up the real thing; fish fried in a thin batter with mashed peas for accompaniment.

What took me back to my Enid Blyton days were the desserts: a tangy and simple summer pudding, made from ordinary white bread, filled with (imported) berries, apple pie with clotted cream and simple custard tarts.

Finally, the cheese platter that topped this meal must come in for a mention. Stilton, the so-called king of Brit cheeses apart, I discovered the Dorset Blue Viny (it's distinctive with its blue veins), a common farmhouse cheese that had almost disappeared by the beginning of the 20th century until Mike Davies at the Woodbridge Farm revived the old recipe in the 1980s.

Our chef being from Dorset, this has now made another appearance, and you could do worse than attempt it this weekend "" without prejudice!