Practical criticism

When 21 Queen Street's restaurant manager Nick Shottel opened up The Times food pages earlier this year he had a nasty shock. In an otherwise favourable review the paper's influential food critic Jonathan Meades had effectively dismissed the wine list as uninteresting and lightweight.

For 30-year-old Shottel, who had looked after the list since the restaurant opened, and chef/proprietor Terry Laybourne it was frustrating, even wounding - but they recognised there was some truth in the criticism that they were short of "names".

"If we'd been strutting around like peacocks thinking we had the best wine list in the world it would have been water off a duck's back," says Laybourne. "But we were conscious there was room for improvement."

The article provided a kick-start to a total re-evaluation of everything on the list. Shottel and Laybourne's philosophy had always been to stock less familiar names and offer good value for money and they didn't want to totally abandon that. The restaurant's principal Champagne, for instance, had always been from a high quality but relatively unknown producer, Bruno Paillard.

However, in accepting Meades' criticism, Shottel substantially strengthened the top end of his Bordeaux, Burgundy and Rhône listings. Eight new white Burgundies were introduced, including a Chassagne-Montrachet from Michel Niellon, a Meursault from Pierre Morey, a Corton Charlemagne from Bonneau de Martray and a Puligny Montrachet from Sauzet.

More interesting wines

Out went worthy plodders such as Vin de Pays de Gascogne and standard Beaujolais Villages to be replaced by better value and more interesting wines such as crisp, fresh Picpoul-de-Pinet and three cru Beaujolais, including one of Shottel's particular favourites, the Les Moriers Fleurie from Michel Chignard.

The Loire list was strengthened by the addition of a Ménétou-Salon and a SavenniÁ¤res, while the totally revamped Alsace selection benefited from two new GewÁ¼rztraminers from top producers Schlumberger and Faller.

The New World list also got an overhaul, although the wine list remains predominantly French.

"France is still regarded as the greatest wine producer," says Shottel. "Even some of our New World wines, such as the FÁ¤vre Chilean Chardonnay and James Halliday's Coldstream Hills Chardonnay, are French in style."

It would have been understandable in the circumstances if Shottel had abandoned his existing suppliers and gone for the biggest names in the business. Instead he has stuck with a couple of northern merchants with whom he has built up a close relationship - Michael Jobling of Newcastle and Michel Canard of Pagendam Pratt in Wetherby.

"Basically they've been very good to us. They helped me a lot when I started and was still pretty green," says Shottel.

Having Jobling 200yd down the road is a particular advantage: "He was the one who introduced me to New World producers such as Jane Hunter and Stag's Leap. He's always turning up with a bottle and saying ‘What do you think of that?'. And it means we don't have to keep enormous stocks on the premises."

Shottel, a self-confessed wine fanatic, has also had a substantial input of his own.

"A lot of the new wines we've put on I've read about or discovered at tastings and asked Michael and Michel to source," he says. "I've got a huge collection of wine books and guides which my family and friends now automatically tend to give me for Christmas. If you look at the list you'll see that Robert Parker has a lot to answer for."

Value for money

The most customer-friendly innovation has been the creation of the "Queen Street Selection", a short list of wines under £20 which has replaced the two house wines. The wines are selected from the main list on the basis that they reflect a range of styles and represent particularly good value for money.

"We say it's for people who haven't the time to read the main list," says Shottel. "In fact it's for people who haven't the time or the inclination."

He doesn't give descriptions of the wines, preferring to talk the customer through them. "It gives people a chance to experiment with unfamiliar wines such as the Domaine de l'Hortus from the Languedoc, which they might overlook on the main list."

Despite the addition of a number of more expensive wines, mark-ups have been kept modest. "Putting a flat rate mark-up on all wines from the humblest to the greatest is madness," says Shottel.

"It costs me a lot to buy a bottle of Mouton Rothschild. If I put 60% on that I'd never sell it and I'd rather sell it than have it hanging around in the cellar for years.

"You have to respect people's intelligence. With more inexpensive wines it's reasonable to put on a gross profit margin of 60%. With wines in the middle range we reduce that to 50-55% and with the more expensive Burgundies, Clarets and top Champagnes it can be as low as 20%."

Finding the perfect match

The policy has created some terrificbargains. Queen Street's 1983 Mouton Rothschild at £65, for example, is £88 cheaper than Le Gavroche's at £153.

Shottel and Laybourne, in fact, were beaten into second place by Le Gavroche in the Mentzendorff Prix des Deux Cartes, a wine and food pairing competition, earlier this year.

Laybourne takes an active interest in the list, often accompanying Shottel to tastings or running through a number of bottles with dishes in the restaurant. He likes the challenge of producing a perfect match. "It's actually not very easy to be creative without some limitation. Your wine is a packaged item that can't be changed so what you have to do is tweak the food."

He admits they don't always get it right: "We based the first course for the Mentzendorff competition - a warm salad of pig's cheek, lentils and foie gras - on a dish we had created for a Hugel pinot gris at one of our regular wine-makers dinners. The Dopff Pinot Gris we picked for the competition just didn't have the same acidity."

Shottel and Laybourne's willingness to admit and learn from their mistakes means they don't fall victim to the kind of complacency that can hit a restaurant of their calibre.

Although he's now happy with the list, Shottel is always on the scrounge for new and interesting wines. The customers, he believes, are more discerning than ever before - and willing to pay for quality: "Three years ago the average spend on wine was £16 a head. Now it's £20."