La Noisette, London SW1

As far as I could see we were the very first paying customers at La Noisette - over the threshold at about a quarter to seven and left in tycoonish isolation for a good hour before anybody else arrived. Turning up like this when the paint is scarcely dry isn't quite the done thing if you're reviewing a new restaurant. You're meant to let the service bed in a little - either so that they can paste over the cracks or possibly so that the cracks can begin to appear (I've never been entirely sure which). Anyway, when I report that Bjorn van der Horst's new place is admirably fracture and fissure free, you might bear that fact in mind. It may be the partnership with Gordon Ramsay that has led to this degree of finish, but there hasn't been a lot of testing friction yet either.

The room we had to ourselves (barring quite a lot of people in black trying to look purposeful) is up a narrow Art Deco staircase, with a view of the Prada shop across Sloane Street impeded only by a sunscreen of fine steel mesh. The taxi-driver who dropped my wife Deborah off at the door said: "Oh, this place... used to be a nightclub... full of prozzies." But if he was thinking of the same place, they've all gone now - replaced by a slightly retro-looking interior that has borrowed its colour scheme from a coffee éclair. It is very Knightsbridge - not an entirely good thing in my view, but no doubt highly congenial to the poor exhausted ladies who will stagger across the road with bags full of bags.

We start eating well before we order - with a little swirl of herbed labneh (a Middle Eastern-influenced yoghurty dip) and some olives arriving first and a shot glass of artichoke velouté following soon after, accompanied by a miniature ice-cream cone stuffed with tomato fondant, tomato granita and a tomato foam. The velouté is terrific, and does precisely what an amuse bouche should do - which is to simultaneously reassure and excite you about what comes next. In Deborah's case it's one of the menu's list of Summer Favourites - an almond gazpacho with smoked paprika shrimp and tomato sorbet. This looks wonderful - a puddle of pale green, dotted with the blush of the sorbet and the spice-flecked shrimps - and tastes even better, all kinds of delayed sweetnesses layering themselves into each mouthful. I order the local heirloom tomatoes, prepared differently each day, but on this one accompanied by two crab-cakes and a tarry smear of tapenade, which is fine, without entirely revealing why these particular tomatoes should have been handed down from generation to generation.

We agree that Deborah has won the first course - but I pull back level with the mains. Her Barbary duck, served with peaches, strikes me (a lover of duck) as very good indeed, a subtle touch of anise in the sauce doing something very special to the peach juices and, in turn, the meat. For Deborah unfortunately, the Chinese spice stirs memories of a recent duck-related queasiness in Beijing, involving parts of the bird that probably never make it past La Noisette's kitchen porter. There are no ambivalent feelings about my Welsh lamb with sweetbreads "à la bouquetière" though - wonderfully tender meat and yielding glands served in a sauce that renders even the aspirin bitterness of baby turnips palatable.

La Noisette is classical enough in its approach to push the cheese trolley forward at this point - before the desserts - and we're greedy enough not to push it away without sampling some - including a melting Brie that virtually makes its own way on to our plates, and a deliciously gamey Langres. The pre-dessert - a watermelon foam with cantaloupe sorbet and a dice of honeydew - is the first wobble, the spume oddly tart and the sprinkle of space-dust pointlessly modish. But two solidly old-fashioned desserts restore the sense of poise - a really excellent strawberry trifle and a fine peach melba, which I'm mildly disappointed to receive beneath one of those cages of spun sugar (a very good way, I've discovered, to sustain multiple lacerations of the upper palate). Fortunately, a sensational lavender fudge arrives with the petits fours to soothe the wounds. I don't know whether the prozzies will return, drawn here by an ancient homing instinct, but if so they're going to eat very well indeed.

La Noisette, 164 Sloane Street, London SW1, (020-7750 5000)

Food
Ambience
Service

Summer Favourites set menu, £55; three courses, £45; chef's Inspirational Tasting Menu, £65