Rhodes W1 Great Cumberland Place, London

Did you read the name as "Rhodes W.I."? It's tempting to imagine a marriage between Gary Rhodes, the spike-haired housewives' favourite, and the Women's Institute, collaborating to make post-punk apricot jam. But Gary's new London HQ is serious. Boy is it serious. So much money has been thrown at it, it doesn't seem like a restaurant at all. It doesn't even have a proper address. It's the posh end of the Great Cumberland Hotel, where Rhodes also masterminds the middle-range Brasserie.

The front door is huge and black, like the portal to an upmarket torture chamber. Inside, it's a shrine, hushed, devotional, carpeted in (I assume – it was too dark to see) cloth of gold. Expensively attired young women materialise from nowhere and greet you very quietly. Your first, unworthy, thought is: God, how much is this going to cost?

The décor, by Kelly Hoppen, is a paradox of restrained opulence. The banquette seating is luxurious but the colours are studiedly washed-out beige and cream, and the chairs your basic hotel plush. The main design feature is the chandeliers that dangle ropes of crystal raindrops over your head and cover the diners with moving spots like a disco mirrorball. My friend Louisa and I found ourselves speaking in whispers, as though in a confessional. The waiting staff proffered napery and water, gingerly, as though some macabre sacrificial rite were in the offing. It was a touch oppressive. I mean, it's only dinner.

We began with some fantastic amuse-bouches. Smoked eel fish fingers; a swirl of foie gras on a morsel of gingerbread toast; a tiny crab salad served on avocado purée sprinkled with chives and a tiny lump of pink grapefruit (the only colour, I noticed, in the entire restaurant); a blob of gouda cheese, containing a tiny black truffle, served as a millefeuille sandwich. Every teeny treat exploded with flavour. Mind you, you needed some bracing-up after discovering that the à la carte menu offers two courses for £39.50 and three for £45.

The menu is keen on little jokes. What could they mean by "Crisp Soft Egg with Duxelle of Morels" or "Double Oyster Ragout"? We had to find out. The egg was soft-boiled and rolled in the most delicate crumbs (hence the "crisp" reference) served on a pungent pile of mushrooms with Roquefort soldiers. "Just perfect," said Louisa, "like a very, very posh breakfast." My double oysters were three poached bivalves and four of the underneath-a-chicken variety, swimming in a dense little "nage" with samphire and herbs. It was remarkable to find a soup that worked with both chicken and fish, but this one did, though it seemed quite a lot of trouble to go to over a verbal coincidence.

My main course Anjou pigeon was a revelation – pigeon breasts that didn't need chewing for 25 minutes. They were tender, obscenely raw purple in colour, cooked in salt with star anise, lemon and orange peel; as a contrast, two little pigeon legs, baked to a Bombay-duck crispness, lurked at the side of the plate on a bed of greens. It was a dish you felt like applauding for being so multitudinously gratifying. Louisa had the turbot on a bed of white asparagus and smoked mackerel ravioli and pronounced it " delicious, but frictionless. Everything about this food is terribly smooth. You don't actually need any teeth to eat any of the dishes tonight."

She was right. The puddings only reinforced her objection. Her raspberry soufflé (with raspberry sauce poured through a hole in the top) was "very sweet – heavenly baby food," while my cherry trifle was a small pile of cooked half-cherries, a dollop of Jersey ice-cream and a gelatinous blob of chocolate and custard. It was fine, but lacked the sensation of diving headfirst into sherry-spongey creaminess that one associates with trifle.

Unable to stop, we ordered the cheese trolley that had first come a-calling after the main course. A shocking £12 for a single plate brought us six surly triangles (from camembert to époisses) thoughtfully ranged by the waiter in ascending order of pungency. By the time they brought the coffee and chocolate petits fours, we were stuffed and amazed by the banquet we'd consumed.

The colossal bill arrived, aptly, in a black envelope, and I silently digested the fact that they charge £8.50 for a gin and tonic and £5 for filter coffee. A drinkable pinot noir at £35 was from the bottom end of the list. But dammit, it was worth it. The place is too churchy, the service over-respectful and the food so relentlessly smooth that you feel like going home and eating dry Rice Krispies0. But this is British cuisine at a high-to-sublime level and you must find someone rich enough to introduce you to it, pronto.

Rhodes W1 Great Cumberland Place, London W1 (020-7479 3737)

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Around £160 for two, with wine