Ralphie's: This Belgravia bistro is barking up the right tree

A feeling of generosity in hospitality isn’t always easy to define. There are restaurants and then there are businesses that sell you a restaurant experience. Restaurants can be successful businesses, and many businesses that operate lunch and dinner service can be successful too. Probably the hardest game in all this is the neighbourhood restaurant, with a small number of covers, chefs that cook everything, and which isn’t going to be rolled out. These places — Ffiona’s, Ida, Les 2 Garcons, to name three — rely on generosity, spirit, romance, charm and ideally some celebrity clientele.The chef Tom Booton, still just 33, is going to give it a try with Ralphie’s, his new Belgravia bistro named after his beloved dog.“This is my first solo restaurant,” he tells The Standard over calamari and champagne.“It’s a British bistro, a dream I’ve always had and one I’ve been working on for a long time. I want it to be a neighbourhood place — somewhere with regulars.”Chef Tom Booton has named Ralphie’s after his dog.It takes until the end of our fish pie for Booton to mention an increasingly rare delight in modern dining: guests will get free bread when they sit down. It will come with a cup of soup and individual butter portions in the shape of Ralphie, the chef’s fluffy white maltipoo.Ralphie’s face is etched into each slab by way of bright red paprika oil poured into moulded grooves.It’s still Belgravia. Starters will shimmy up from £14 (Waldorf salad) to £18 (cured brill with grapefruit). Main courses will start at £30 (trout with pickled grapes and tarragon), and will include dishes that helped Booton become one of London’s most sought-after young chefs, from pork and mushroom pie with mustard to roast venison with lardons, clapshot and lingonberries. The “skate diane” also shows promise, while on Sundays, lunch will come with a Yorkshire pudding stuffed with shepherd’s pie.“We’ll be doing my take on moules marinière, cod cheek scampi, and signature steak tartare with shoestring fries and an egg yolk confited in beef fat.” Next year, there’ll be a homemade Viennetta.More playful still is the dog menu. Four-legged guests may choose from plates such as venison leg and duck neck, Baltic sprats with a fish skin roll, or, for dogs visiting on a Sunday, a big pig-in-blanket with crispy pig’s snout and wild boar. “Dogs are welcome, of course,” Booton adds but stresses: “We can’t have everyone turn up with dogs. And they still need to be well behaved. It’s not doggy daycare.”More than anything, Booton seems excited. Understandably. He’s spent the last 12 months or more touring West Country auction houses for furniture, designing a kitchen, commissioning artwork from friends and finding a blackboard for his daily specials — there’ll be a changing main course for under £20 each lunch time.“I’ve self-funded this, with a bit of investment from four others,” he says. “A lot of people have helped me out, there have been a lot of mate’s rates, friends doing me favours.Read More“The Royal Opera House gave me some marble tables, and my friend Pritesh Mody [of Sunday Brunch fame] put together the drinks list.“Basically, I want this to feel like a proper neighbourhood restaurant. It sounds corny, but I want it to be generous.”