When I was an undergraduate, there was a competition among my peers and I to discover who could best use a term from that classic text A Handlist of Rhetorical Terms without sounding like a dilettante, while at the same time extracting praise from the don. We were such chumps. I won for my use of "litotes". Aside from meaning an understatement that intensifies, and usually being expressed through a denial of the opposite (the "not un-" formula that Orwell so hated), it is an anagram of "toilets" and "T S Eliot".
It was litotes that gave the speakeasy bars of Prohibition America their outer mystery and inner charm. Soho House on Greek Street has it, too: a blank, unspectacular door, betraying no sign of the mischief or mayhem within. Understatement that intensifies.
Opposite Clapham North station in south-west London is a restaurant whose name, Four O Nine, is its street number on Clapham Road. The door is remarkably unremarkable, and the buzzer seems to demand a password; but by giving your name and time of reservation, you gain entry to a world of gastronomic delight.
Up some stairs and through a decked terrace we hit upon another door, with a short corridor leading past the kitchen and into a delightful main room, of taupe walls with public-transport prints. There is an instant conviviality and class about the place, with swivel chairs aplenty and high-end cutlery. The service is both attentive and considerate.
The menu here is short – four starters, four mains, four sides, and four desserts on a weekend lunchtime, though more at other times during the week – and changes regularly. Two excellent amuse-bouche arrive in quick succession: foie-gras parfait with black olive and chive on salted cracker; then wild smoked salmon with pickled fennel and orange-and-lime crème fraîche.
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