Entropy, Dover Street, Leicester

There is only one thing I have to say to the people of Leicester. Where are you? Or more to the point, why aren't you where I am?

Leicester finally gets a restaurant that can mix it with the big boys, and here it is, less than half-full, on a Friday night. Even the cab driver who brought me here said that if he wanted a good night out, he had to drive 20 miles to Nottingham.

Certainly, the location isn't what you'd call prime, set in a converted concrete warehouse down a small street with sweeping views of a multi-storey car park. But this is Leicester, where everything has a view of a car park. Once inside, there's a young, layabout downstairs bar and a cool, minimalist upstairs dining room that's professional, welcoming and smartly put together.

Or maybe it's the name. In thermodynamics, entropy is the measure of microscopic disorder, or randomness, or something like that. Owners Tom and Cassandra Cockerill both have degrees in physics, so you can ask them to explain it. Mind you, considering that they are married and that Cassandra's sister Eleanor also helps out, they could have called it Relativity instead.

Cockerill has cooked at some fine establishments including the Vineyard at Stockcross and Hambleton Hall, as well as doing a stint at Heston Blumenthal's Fat Duck. Like Blumenthal, he does much of his cooking "sous vide" in vacuum-sealed bags and, like Blumenthal, he uses a scientific water-bath capable of maintaining pre-set temperatures, accurate to a tenth of a degree. Entropy's menu stops short of eyebrow-raisers such as snail porridge and sardine ice cream, preferring to sneak up behind you with dishes such as vanilla-scented langoustine bavarois; risotto with asparagus, peas and broad beans and Parmesan air; and scallops with black truffle, buttered leeks and cauliflower foam.

Even the freshly baked bread rolls are softly crusted big baubles, fragrant with what smell like Indian spices, a possible reference to one-third of the city's population being Hindu, Muslim and Sikh.

You're all mad not to be eating here. Look at the starters: I pinch a pea and ham soup (£3.50) from an early evening menu, and it's blindingly good. Bright green soup swirls around a delicate lasagne turret of ham cooked in hay - good old pea and ham gone to finishing school. A terrine of pig's head and foie gras (£7.50) shows exacting technique, with its strata of varying degrees of pinkness and rich middle layer of foie gras scattered with finely chopped truffle. One piggy layer melts effortlessly into the next, and the overall effect is punched up by a gutsy sauce gribiche.

Main courses carry more elements and, as a result, are less dazzling than the single-minded first courses. A cylinder of poached wood pigeon (£22.95) has been cooked sous-vide for 20 minutes at 59C, resulting in uniformly rare and tender meat. It tastes better than it looks, and it's neighbours are mighty: a stack of perfect lattice-cut crisps (excellent - please serve them in the bar), a plug of sweet, fruity beetroot, a little pile of savoy cabbage and a crisp little pastilla pastry of the pigeon leg. Some splish-splash, dish-dash saucery adds colour but also a sense of déjà vu.

Similarly, an over-cooked piece of brown, thin, tapenade-coated seabass (£18.95) is outgunned by its attendants - glistening cubes of beetroot jelly, thin slices of spicy chorizo, a verdant spinach, crisp salsify sticks and a hearty basil mash.

There are some good cooks at work here, but I wonder about the sous-vide and water-bath stuff. It may give the chef control, but it gives the diner no outer texture, colour or sense of freshness. Are we all being led up the garden path of entropic mayhem, I wonder?

While food prices are serious, wine prices are more than fair, with the bulk of the French-driven wine list staying under the £25 mark. A bright, silky, Remi Rollin Haute Côte de Beaune delivers beyond its £19 price tag.

The dessert list looks conservative, but isn't. An apple tart tatin (£7.95) is outrageous, like a crisp, sweet, toffeed bowl of a Yorkshire pud, filled with tart, fragrant apple and a scoop of divine Comoros vanilla ice-cream. Cutely, five classic British cheeses from Beenleigh Blue to Berkswell come on a strip of slate, matched to an identically shaped printed list.

This has been a very good night out, and I don't have to qualify that with "for Leicester". The service has been attentive and caring, and an unexpected highlight has been the music drifting up from the young, extremely talented local jazz pianist in the bar - one of the few times a pianist has added to the dining occasion rather than diminished it.

The brand new Good Food Guide 2006 rates Entropy as one of six UK Newcomers of the Year. So, Leicester, don't say you weren't told. And don't go to Nottingham for your next big night out. But do book ahead - now that the rest of the country knows, you may not be able to get a table.

Score: 15/20
Entropy, 3 Dover Street, Leicester, tel: 0116 254 8530
Lunch and dinner served Monday to Saturday.
Around £100 for two, including wine and service.

Scores 1-9 stay home and cook 10-11 needs help 12 OK 13 pleasant enough 14 good 15 very good 16 capable of greatness 17 special, can't wait to go back 18 highly honourable 19 unique and memorable 20 as good as it gets

Second helpings: More warehouse restaurants

The Zetter, 86-88 Clerkenwell Road, London EC1, tel: 020 7324 4455 In 2004
This Victorian warehouse was converted into a chic designer hotel. Its friendly, buzzy restaurant serves up quality modern Italian cooking, including plaice with bagna cauda, and taleggio, fig, chilli and rocket pizza.

Warehouse Brasserie, 30 West Street, Southport, Merseyside, tel: 01704 544 662
A converted warehouse comprising store, bakery, lounge and brasserie, serving up Southport's favourite big night out. Chef Marc Verite's global menu (Malaysian king prawns, bangers'n'mash) has won the place a Bib Gourmand from Michelin.

Brasserie Forty 4, 44 The Calls, Leeds, tel: 0113 234 3232
Set in a former grain warehouse overlooking the river Aire, this spacious brasserie shares the premises with its more upmarket sibling, the Pool Court Restaurant. Here, however, the food is more relaxed, from pickled ox-tongue salad to venison stew with dumplings.

Email Terry Durack, restaurant critic of the year, about where you've eaten lately at t.durack@independent.co.uk