Friend Or Faux (from The Northern Echo)

Salvatore Savino seems to have the running of restaurants in his genes. He has now turned his talents to managing a cafe in Durham

THE day after loyally holding forth at a St George's Day dinner, after savouring some sumptuous roast beef and in general crying God for Harry, England and all the rest of the crew, the column found itself lunching at Café Rouge - French for beginners.

Self-described as a "middle-market chain", Café Rouge first appeared in 1989, now has around 90 outlets and is owned by Tragus Holdings, whose 250-restaurant portfolio also includes the Bella Italia line.

In Durham, where Café Rouge is new, Bella Italia is next door. Since we are now a café society, Caffe Nero is just up the street.

There is a certain hauteur among food critics - a certain froideur, too - towards chain restaurants. If they visit at all, it's usually with preconceived notions - a chain reaction, as it were.

That the Durham branch of Café Rouge suggested a more appealing prospect was partly because the website menu looked promising and partly because it's managed by Salvatore Savino whose late father Andrea turned Savino's in Shildon into the most ebullient and idiosyncratic eating place in the North-East and with some cracking good food, too.

Andrea died, much mourned, last year. While legalities continue over what will happen to the Shildon premises, Salvatore has perhaps to rein iconoclastic instinct in the interest of corporate responsibility.

He's a good lad and it's a nice place, the walls covered with French posters and the occasional tricolour - a Rouge gallery - the atmosphere relaxed, the cosmopolitan clientele ranging from streetwise students to older folk who looked like they might have been more at home in Carricks café.

A pair of elderly ladies ordered two coffees and a bottle of wine. The Boss thought that a perfectly balanced diet.

It's a former Pizza Hut in Silver Street next to the bustling, busking Prebends Bridge. Salvatore recognised us, showed us to what he said was the best table in the house and was probably right - next to a slightly open window, views of the river, basket chairs for those with what used to be called a fuller figure.

He also enquired whether the visit to Durham were for shopping or football, and was told the truth. "No pressure there, then," said Salvatore.

That it is faux French is inevitable, toilets labelled "Mesdames" and "Messiers"

If it's a toss-up between friendly or faux, however, the first wins every time - and in a wee Scottish lassie called Angela, we had a gem of waitress.

Angela had kids at home, worked parttime before children's television drove her barmy. "If I ever go on Mastermind my specialists subject will be CBeebies,"

The menu has simple French labels, English sub-titles. We drank Laffe, a Belgian bottled beer with plenty of dry flavour - so it should have at 6.2abd and £3.20 for a small bottle - and a naturally cloudy cider which took The Boss back to west country student days.

She'd begun with crevettes a l'ail - you know, king prawns with garlic, tomato and chilli - followed by salmon nicoise salad with new potatoes, olives, French beans, anchovies and red onions.

She'd also forgotten that the French for sea boss is loup de mer - literally wolf of the sea; queer blighters, these sea bass.

There was also an etymological debate about the Marmite Dieppoise - a seafood casserole - until the lady of the house, the smartest in any language, remembered that "marmite" is French for a sort of covered earthenware pot. The Oxford English confirms, inevitably, that she was right. It's how the yeast extract, love it or hate it, came by its name, too.

I'd started with crepe d'eglefin, which translates into "baked Brittany pancake with a creamy smoked haddock filling and melted Gruyere cheese". It was a bit scadded, as they say in French West Rainton, otherwise fine.

The "Saucisses de Toulouse" came from a four-dish section headed "Plats regionaux"

- dense, heavily smoked, greatly Gallic sausages with a warm new potato salad and thyme jus (£9.75). The sausages were excellent; distinctly different, the thyme jus added perk to the platter. £9.75, though? We wondered about the exchange rate.

The only disappointment was the assortment of puddings - a routine creme brulee, a lukewarm red currant crumble and a chocolate confection with nasty cream. The bill, with the addition of a Citron Presse - beloved of the French - reached £38.

Back home, we again checked the Tragus Holdings website, turnover up to £148.7m last year, pre-tax profits to £28.2m.

The first link in a new chain, called Huxley's, was due to open in March - if ever it got off the ground - at Heathrow's new terminal five. It was described as "traditional British".

■ Café Rouge, Silver Street, Durham, 0191-384-3429. Open 9am-11pm weekdays, 10am-10pm Sunday. Main menu from noon plus lunchtime prix fixe.

SPEAKING of Marmite and of Durham, which (rather thinly spread) we were, Durham University chancellor Bill Bryson acknowledged the stuff's curious appeal in Notes From a Small Island. "There are certain things which you have to be British, or at least older than me, to appreciate - skiffle music, salt cellars with a single hole and Marmite."

JUST what the doctor ordered, and wholly efficacious, a very pleasant little coffee shop has opened in the former GPs' surgery at Gainford, between Darlington and Barnard Castle.

The Laurels, run by Karen Birch, overlooks the village green. The brass plate announcing surgery hours for Drs Neville and Waldin has been moved inside; the good doctors themselves are at a new health centre.

The menu's simple, inexpensive and clearly home made, the transformed building attractively furnished. Breakfast's served until 11.30, salads, sandwiches, baked potatoes and things thereafter.

The specials board included mammoth bowls of richly flavoured asparagus, mushroom or lentil and bacon soup, all £3.95 and with very good bread and butter.

The service is relaxed, the atmosphere convivial, the day's papers to hand. We went with this company's retired MD, so at least one of us had been working all morning. For both, a tonic at the old doc's.

THIS year's beer festival at the admirable Langdon Beck Hotel, top end of Teesdale, has had to be cancelled because landlord Glen Matthews is ill.

The pub's still open and keeping the home fires burning as normal - and Sue Matthews hopes to be back on the beer festival trail, and to be celebrating Glen's recovery, next year.

SUCCINCTLY headed "Quaker shaker", Darlington CAMRA's excellent newsletter reports that the Quaker House - a town centre pub where ten well-kept real ales are available at any time - has been taken over by Scottish and Newcastle, now part of Heineken.

"Heineken," adds the Darlington Drinker, "is a Dutch based multinational not previously known for a love of British cask beer."

and finally the bairns wondered if we knew what fish is the terror of the oceans.

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