Price Is Right at London Restaurant

Some upper-crust restaurants in France give women diners a menu without prices. Only their male companions are privy to the costs unless it’s specified that the woman is treating.

Now, a restaurateur here has gone one step further and eliminated prices on all his menus, but the move has little to do with etiquette.

The purpose of this price-less menu is to allow people to pay what they think the meal is worth. Peter Ilic offers a six-course meal at Just Around the Corner, his cozy French restaurant in northwest London, and lets customers pay what they like. The wine list is also sans prices.

The Yugoslavia-born Ilic said, “This way people pay as much as they like. If something is not right, they don’t have to pay. I hate an empty restaurant. I would rather pay people to come in and have a meal than have an empty restaurant.”

Ilic, 36, who came to London 13 years ago, started the first of four restaurants with 4,000 (about $6,000) in 1982. He claims that all are successful simply because he serves good food at affordable prices.

“I believe the restaurants in London are overpriced,” he said. “I believe many restaurants would be better off to bring their prices down and attract more customers. I proved it with my first three restaurants and they’re packed.”

A Risky Idea

Ilic said he has wanted to open a restaurant with a no-price menu since he got interested in the business, but thought such an idea too risky for his first enterprise.

Now that the others are healthy, he’s putting the unconventional idea to the test with Just Around the Corner, a name he chose because it’s easy to remember and appropriate for the residential area of the restaurant.

As for the volume of business since it opened last October, the slim, dark-haired chef smiled confidently and announced: “It’s good.” All evenings are booked in advance, and a table for a Saturday evening often requires booking four weeks in advance.

One month after opening, he hurriedly launched a second-floor room, expanding the seating from 30 to 54. “I was planning to open upstairs; then one day they overbooked me so I did it in a panic.”

The amount customers pay varies greatly, Ilic said, but he is not afraid of being misused or cheated. “I get more here than from my other restaurants where a meal is about 10--$12 ($14-$17). People are embarrassed to leave too little.”

The lowest, he recalls, was 8 ($11) left by two women after having a three-course meal. The most generous was 80 ($116) for dinner for two on New Year’s Eve.

‘This Is Done Properly’

Ilic doesn’t skimp on the menu offerings or the niceties. “This is done properly--proper tables, proper napkins, proper staff,” he said proudly, looking around his establishment.

The charming room, designed by Ilic, is memorable for its vaulted ceiling with rough-hewn wood beams and stained-glass windows. It is furnished with antique chairs and tables of various styles. Recorded classical music, crocheted tablecloths from Yugoslavia and candlelight create a comfortable, romantic setting.

The staff is not overly solicitous as might be expected in such a situation. Customers aren’t hurried, as there is only one seating an evening.

The six-course meal begins with an aperitif. The house specialties are a mimosa (called a buck’s fizz in Britain) or a hot punch of spiced wine and brandy, but a drink of your choice can also be requested.

Crudities, assorted raw vegetables, are brought to the table and the soup of the day is offered.

Basic French Food

The food is basic French, as was Ilic’s training in cooking school in Yugoslavia, but the dishes also reflect his flair for the unusual and his Slavic background. He calls his cooking cuisine libre . “I used to work in Italian, French, Greek and Hungarian restaurants,” he said. “And Yugoslavia is on the border with Greece, Italy and Austria, so we get these influences.”

He abhors the “boring prawn cocktail” served in many of London’s French restaurants, so he and Mario Kilic, the restaurant’s chef and Ilic’s cooking teacher from Yugoslavia, have created a selection of unusual appetizers.

“For instance, profiteroles ,” Ilic explained. “Usually people would expect profiteroles to be stuffed with cream and sweet with chocolate sauce. But I stuffed it with crab. That’s a very popular one.”

A Lebanese Touch

Another appetizer features fresh salmon on a bed of cracked wheat and parsley for a Lebanese touch. The heaping plate of fresh mussels are steamed in a savory wine sauce.

The menu, which changes every few weeks, offers six main courses. Basics such as lamb and chicken emerge from the kitchen as lamb chops in puff pastry with a herb sauce or Ilic’s namesake dish, chicken Peter, breast of chicken stuffed with lamb and mint.

The seafood dish might be lobster in a brandy and cream sauce or grilled Dover sole. Steak, veal, duck and even venison are often among the selections, and Ilic has recently added a vegetarian main course.

A selection of cheeses and a basket of crackers precede the dessert for customers who ask for them.

For the sweet finish there is creamy chocolate cheesecake (“best in London,” remarked one American expatriate), meringue with walnut cream and strawberry-flavored zabaglione as well as sorbet and fresh fruit.

Diners usually begin trying to decide the value of this repast as coffee and tea and a dish of dainty cookies arrive.

Ilic admits that one drawback to the no-price menu is that some people are very ill at ease trying to decide on a fair price. A few insist on being told what to pay. “I tell them we’re searching for a good value. Wherever you ate before, just take 30% and leave us that much.

“I would prefer that they leave less and they come back and recommend me to their friends,” he said.

‘Starting to See Old Faces’

He’s not particularly concerned about the novelty factor. “Many people will come once for the novelty, but I’m starting to see old faces, people coming back. It makes me more happy.”

The unusual venture has gotten plenty of attention in magazines, newspapers and on the telly. It’s been called “a winner,” “good value,” “lunatic,” “gimmick” and “economically irresponsible.” “The enterprise will not last long,” predicted Punch magazine.

But, buoyed by the success of Just Around the Corner in its first six months, Ilic replied coolly: “It’ll stay forever like this.”

Just Around the Corner is a 20-to-25-minute taxi ride from central London at 446 Finchley Road, NW3. The nearest Underground stop is Golders Green, about a 10-minute walk from the restaurant. Major credit cards accepted.