The National Dining Room, Sainsbury Wing, National Gallery, London WC2

The one thing you'd think a gallery restaurant would get right is the visuals, but to be fair the National Dining Room in the Sainsbury Wing is struggling with its raw materials. At Tate Britain, Rex Whistler's mural The Expedition in Pursuit of Rare Meats will accompany your meal. At Tate Modern, the National Portrait Gallery and the Museum of Scotland they offer spectacular panoramas of the Thames, Trafalgar Square and Edinburgh, each of them stacking up an impressive roster of tourist landmarks. But at the National Gallery they have a space that looks like a transit lounge, lodged under the eaves of the portico so that what view there is is cut off at the midriff, unless you're lucky enough to be graced with a table right next to the window. And if you're not, you'll just have to settle for the dim glow of the oversized light bulbs that are one of minimal design's few concessions to a softening touch.

It doesn't help that there's nothing in place to demarcate the Gallery's new café from the restaurant - so that arriving to eat at the latter doesn't quite give you that sense of privileged sequestration which is one of the pleasures of going club class rather than economy. Sit in the wrong place, in fact, and the best view you're going to get is gallery-goers tucking into the simpler components of head chef Jesse Dunford Wood's sturdily British menu at a hefty discount. Clearly it's the food and not the room that's going to be doing all the work here.

It's going to do it in resolutely insular style too - strong on cabbage, puddings, dumplings and trifle - very light on purées and jus, terrines and compotes. One of the very few French words on the menu is "mousse", though its gallic promise of a light, aerated froth turns out to be misapplied to the dishes in which it appears. By chance we order both of them - a warm watercress mousse with a salad of watercress leaves (£6) and chicken liver mousse with piccalilli (£7.50). If the former really was intended to be a mousse then it has gone wrong but it tastes good anyway, a trembling watercress-flavoured custard which arrives banded like dark and light jade. The chicken liver mousse is served as a shallow layer at the bottom of a soup dish, studded with shreds of chicken and topped with strands of tarragon and chive, a fine clear aspic and the piccalilli -- which comes deconstructed, as lightly pickled vegetables and florets of cauliflower without the conventional bright yellow glue of turmeric and flour. It all tastes fine but I'm not convinced that serving it this way, so that it has to be scraped from the bottom of the dish, adds much to the experience. It unnecessarily summons to mind the subtle distinction between the word "set" and the word "congealed".

A main course of roast beetroot and Wensleydale tart gains a bit more from its presentation - an excellent cheese filling bracketed between a crisp disc of pastry and a low tiled dome of thin beetroot discs. Surrounded by lightly dressed mustard leaves it creates a roundel of green and purple - and the taste is on target too. My double chop of Elwy Valley lamb with spelt and rosemary is served deboned and rolled into medallions, and despite a warning that it will be served pink, barely a blush remains in the grey. Fortunately the meat has more than enough flavour to ride out the bump. The spelt - a wheat grain cooked with very finely diced carrots and onions - turns out to be a kind of Anglo-Saxon risotto and is a good, earthy match for the lamb, though the unchopped needles of rosemary can deliver an unexpected spike of antiseptic if you're unwary.

We finish by sharing a very fine treacle tart - moist, fragrant with lemon and served with clotted cream. Along with a dark wholemeal bread served with the meal it suggests that the bakery section of the new operation will be worth checking out for its home-made pies and biscuits. I'd be happy to explore the restaurant menu a little further too - since the excellent sourcing and essentially good technique easily outweigh the minor glitches in our meal - and some notably handsome fish dishes are served to the table next to us during our meal. But it would be nice if they could find a more attractive frame.

The National Dining Room, Sainsbury Wing, National Gallery, London WC2

Food
Ambience
Service

About £65 for two, without wine or service

Side orders: Artful eating

By Caroline Stacey

Oca

It's not your usual quiche and carrot cake at the independently owned restaurant underneath Sale's arts centre. Pizzas come topped with Thai curry or Chinese duck; pizza Stuckists can stick to margarita, salads or pasta bakes from the pizza oven.

Waterside Arts Centre, Sale, Cheshire (0161 962 6666)

CCA Café

If minimalists dream of anything, this must be their vision of eating and drinking. In the Glasgow Centre for Contemporary Art's covered courtyard they sit on upholstered cubes to eat ciabatta sandwiches and well-considered modern European dishes.

350 Sauchiehall Street, Glasgow (0141 332 7959)

De La Warr Pavilion

The modernist marvel of the south coast deserves a visit. Better still the Good Eating Company does the dazzling first floor café and restaurant justice with local produce like smoked salmon, watercress and sourdough, and grilled lobster for dinner.

Marina, Bexhill-on-Sea, East Sussex (01424 229119)

Wapping Food

The former pumping station is a stunning space devoted to dining and art. Watch the chefs cook an impressive menu of robust European dishes, well matched with an all-Australian wine list. At the same time, take in changing art works all around.

The Wapping Project, Wapping Wall, London E1 (020-7680 2080)