Gilgamesh, London NW1

It takes a while to find Gilgamesh, even when it's staring you in the face. Stand by the bridge in London's Camden Market, between the studded-leather-belt stalls and the combat-fatigue shops, and look for the window of a typical restaurant and you won't find one. All you can see is some fancy-pants nightclub on two floors, a brash crystal palace like the glass testicle beside Tower Bridge, only with a red carpet and bouncers outside. Gradually it dawns on you that this is Gilgamesh, the new home of Ian Pengelley, Gordon Ramsay's young protegé, the pan-Asian fusion star formerly of Sloane Street.

Go up the escalator and take a look and your jaw will drop. The place is huge, awesomely cavernous, unfeasibly grand. Intricate wood carvings stretch for miles up the walls. Tearooms open out into panoramic cocktail lounges. The bar extends 50 feet, its surface covered with three lines of Assyrian hieroglyphics. Overhead, a four-feet-high frieze of Mesopotamian figures and animals move in frozen procession. The restaurant is a Palm Court deck designed by Emperor Bokassa. At the business end, two giant figures - equal parts man, bird and horse - loom over the diners while, on a stage between them, some muted jazzmen play elevator music. There's a VIP section, where groups of very rich friends can commandeer a round table and pay premium rates (if there's five or six of you, expect to spend £700). Ordinary tables are covered in cunningly wrought flowered inlays, while the chairs feature carved human arms, lions' feet and little beardy faces around the shoulder region.

You can't say the owners lack ambition. Taking their cue from the Epic of Gilgamesh, the oldest poem in history (c. 2,700BC, though it was excavated only in the 19th century), they've faithfully recreated King Gilgamesh's private folly: "In Uruk, he built walls, a great rampart, and the temple of blessed Eanna for the god of the firmament, Anu, and for Ishtar, the goddess of love. Look at it still today: the outer wall where the cornice runs, it shines with the brilliance of copper, and the inner wall, it has no equal ..." In the modern Gilgamesh, the inner wall shines with the brilliance of bronze, while the outer wall ... well, there's a bar counter with a line of bar stools in front of the west-facing windows, should you want to eat your dinner overlooking the bricky outhouses, the railway line and the passing freight trains.

It's all, frankly, too much. The bronze, the carvings, the friezes, the statuary, all weigh uncomfortably on the spirits. But just as you're feeling gloomy about it, they spring a surprise - on hot summer nights, the 40-foot glass ceiling opens up and the Gilgamesh becomes a groovy roof terrace.

The food? Who cares about the food? This is a destination restaurant, where you come for cocktails and chat. But the food isn't at all bad. Guided by José, a waiter of exemplary patience and good humour, we chose from salads, sushi, dim sum and main courses. From a mixed bag of spring rolls and nigiris, I went for yellowtail sashimi, three firm tranches of fish, beautifully served on a banana leaf steaming with dry ice, and delicious with soy and wasabi. From a dozen dim sum bits, the chicken gyoza was fine, the ginger nicely balanced with a trace of vinegar. The big hit, though, was thom kha soup, a spicy melange of Thai ingredients: fresh coriander, oyster mushrooms, angry little chillis, galangal, lemongrass and the aniseedy niff of Thai basil, served gasp-inducingly hot.

From the five main courses, I chose a roast duck red curry with fried rice. It was no better than you'd be served in any good-quality suburban Thai Pavilion, and the addition of lychees was a not wholly successful surprise. My companion had the pompously named beef fillet chive mash sweet soy glaze, a quartet of steak medallions indifferently grilled medium, sitting on green mashed potato - a dish that seemed to have strayed in from another restaurant. It wasn't helped by the lighting, which mutated, disco-style, from pink to blue, and turned the mash turquoise. A side dish of bok choi in oyster sauce was yummy, and at £6 it damn well should have been.

Because Gilgamesh is trying to be so many things - tearoom, bar, nighthawk hang-out zone, museum exhibit, multimedia extravaganza - it's hard to take it seriously as a restaurant, which is a shame because it has a sure touch with Asian cuisine. The Las Vegas vulgarity of the décor, and the World Cup on TV in the bar, fatally undermine its Babylonian self-importance. It's a place that's probably seen at its best late at night, with the roof open, the Camden stars out and the contented buzz of a few hundred people getting quietly sloshed over their £11 red curry.

Gilgamesh, The Stables, Camden Market, Chalk Farm Road, London NW1 (020-7482 5757)

Food:
Ambience:
Service:

About £90 for two, including wine