The Windsor Castle, Kensington

An old lady friend of mine has undergone cosmetic surgery. Tonight, I'm visiting The Windsor Castle again now the bandages are off. A listed atmospheric charmer, in its current guise, it has been serving genteel Kensington folk since 1835 - but there's been a tavern on the site since Shakespeare was a boy. Had the new dining room been around in his day,  dinner within might have been the inspiration for the bard's work. The Merry Wives of Windsor? A Comedy Of Errors, more like, performed by waiters whose roustabout routine lapses into farce at times. "Does anyone have a torch? I've dropped a £1 coin on the floor," pleads one. Having taken it barely seconds before, another waiter is back to ask what we ordered as "the ticket got lost between here and the kitchen." "You wanted rosé. This is red wine," beams same bright spark later, before exiting stage left. Behind us, a table of angry 'regulars'  pointedly deducts the 'service' charge. Another exasperated patron reckons Basil Fawlty must be in charge and, on and on it goes, like Hamlet, a tragedy in five acts. On a balmy evening, with a warm breeze blowing in from the busy, NOISY garden, our food is no Midsummer Night's Dream either.  On an ambitiously priced menu, quality ales are suggested to match each of 8 starters and six mains - Curious Brew an apposite choice for a most curious over-sweet/ under-seasoned pea soup that's poured from its serving jug, carelessly sloshed over (courtesy of that waiter again) a pointless 'soft-boiled' egg placed at its centre. The eye-bothering result is green gloop that brings back childhood memories of my father clearing frog spawn from his garden's unappetising soupy pond. My date's ham hock terrine is bland, its piccalilli insipid, seasonal leaves savagely a-salted by a thuggish dressing. Better, as it ought to be at £19, is attractively presented individual rabbit and crayfish puff pastry pie. Decent mash and al dente green beans, too. Pedestrian chips and astringent house relish accompany a ribeye bone marrow, Celtic Promise cheese and bacon burger.  How would you like it cooked?" "Medium rare please," says date, only to be informed several minutes later that the burger can only be cooked the way chef - "he's French, I think, and very particular", offers our waiter, sunnily - likes it (i.e medium to well). So  not As You Like It, dear diner. Either way, it would be a disappointing, sloppy assembly at half its £18 cost. My date is getting tetchy... and we all know what happened to Romeo when Juliet  went off the rails. We pass on English puds (from £6 ) and coffee so as to All's Well That Ends Well, who knows? 
114 Campden Hill Road W8 7AR 7243 8797 http://www.thewindsorcastlekensington.co.uk

Adapted from my review for www.squaremeal.co.uk

Bar Titania, Soho

Will this latest gay/ straight friendly concept prove to be a winner at a hostile site that, in fairly rapid succession, has seen off numerous passing fancies,  among them Geisha, Piano Lounge and Longshots? Let's just say, I wish the owners luck but won't be betting my best Turnbull and Asser double cuff on it. Like the FTSE's miners, gay bars' stock is low these days. I blame social media. Like Video Killed The Radio Stars, Grindr and Gaydar killed the gay bars. Let's face it; If a thrusting blade aims to cop off, why hang around in bars hawking his harris when he can show it online and have hot top - 10 Inches/ cut/ into uniform, red, yellow and Paris Hilton - Hector from Honduras's cock up his tail in less time than it takes a barman to make a Carol Channing cocktail? Hoping to strike it lucky on the gay bar scene, Titania's vision is a mere cosmetic rehash of what  went before.  Conspiring against them is the space's tricky layout - a narrow bar in a narrow corridor serving a claustrophobic windowless box-room beyond and, upstairs, a vast lounge detached from any downstairs buzz....should there ever be any. Overseen by the Shakespearian Queen herself -  imagined in a mural that I can't imagine anyone is about to tear down, banking on auctioning it, like a Banksy, for six figures - here's a gauche mix of lumpen furniture, clichéd feature floral wallpaper/ chandelier combo and, in that airy upstairs cream space, bland cream seating groups, cream candles and display table units (in cream) in which copies of Boyz and Pride await your perusal. What was the design brief, I wonder? A gay Guildford GUM clinic's reception room? If the interior is not your bag, you can groove along to Barbara Bush's disco ditties -no, not Dubya's mummy; a bloke from Battersea sporting fake titties, I'm told. If Babs is not your bag, enjoy your £6.95 cosmo or caipirinha - or a bottle of Ayala (£45) if you're a piss elegant poseur - in Titania's ‘beautiful outside  space with relaxed seating, candlelight and stunning plants' - aka a dreary covered patio overlooking fume-choked, charmless Charing Cross Road. I'm confused. Weren't gay bars once the most cutting-edge joints in town? Or was that - like Rock Hudson's image as
 as a straight stud muffin -  a load of old bollocks too? As it is, another old closet case springs to mind here, currently being admirably played in cinemas by Michael Douglas. And if you reckon Titiania's Liberace-lite pose will pull in the punters in their gazillions, then you  might be 'away with the fairies' as my grandmother used to say.  

75 Charing Cross Road WC2H 0NE www.facebook.com/pages/Bar-Titania/476857759053491