Arbutus, London W1

The only arbutus I know comes at the end of Joni Mitchell's For the Roses where the folk goddess cheerily considers the emptiness of fame. Was that applause she'd heard in the wind last night? Nope, "It was just the arbutus rustling/ And the bumping of the logs/ And the moon swept down black water/ Like an empty spotlight." I looked up "arbutus" in Rustling Foliage Monthly and discovered it's "a shrubby tree with laurel-like evergreen leaves and warty red berry". Sad to report, "the strawberry-like berries are edible, but with unpleasant flavour, although birds like them." It didn't fill me with happy expectation. The restaurant, however, did, the minute I got there.

You're greeted in the doorway with glowing smiles, you choose whichever table-for-two you fancy, no music is playing and nobody flaps a napkin at your crotch. The décor is coolly minimal, with black-leather banquettes, square wooden tables and grey abstracts on the wall.

Then you study the wine list and get a shock. Twenty-five whites and 26 reds, mostly French but with a smattering of New World marques, are offered in 25ml carafes as well as 75ml bottles. (And they're cheap - I mean, £4.50 for two glasses of Rothschild Pinot Noir?) Many restaurants will offer half a dozen wines by the glass. But to offer the whole wine-list by the carafe - to gaily open an £85 bottle of 2000 Côte-Rotie so that a diner can enjoy a third of it for £28.50? This is unheard of. But it's what Arbutus does, and hats off to them.

The chef here is Anthony Demetre, who used to cook on the same site when it was the Bistro Bruno. His forte is French peasant cuisine. You can tell by the ruthless paysan way he exploits the pig - braised pig's head, pig tripe, pig's trotters and belly of pork all show up on the menu (everything, as they say in peasant circles, bar the squeak). My starter of chicken sot l'y laisse, macaroni, broad beans, lemon thyme and hazelnuts was a riot of subtle flavours. Sot l'y laisse translates as "only a fool would leave it" and features six chicken "oysters" - those dark oval bits tucked away under the carcass and often ignored by the fastidious. Nestling among long tubes of macaroni and the bright green vegetables, they were amazingly tasty.

My date had the warm cod brandade, in which the cod was puréed within an inch of its life, and the main attraction was the soft baby curls of young squid. Unpredictable in her passions, Carolyn enthused over the sea purslane, something I'd never encountered before (it's like spinach, but with small, heart-shaped, juicy leaves) and the cromesquis, a small olive roundel which, when pricked, released a magic flood of parsley sauce (which, by a stroke of luck, perfectly matched her green cotton top, though the management probably can't replicate this stylish trick for every diner).

The main courses all hover around the £13-£14 mark and are full of bright ideas in the accessories department - pistachio and marjoram with the pollock, for instance, or tarragon gnocchi with the chicken. My three lumps of "slow-cooked salt beef 'pot au feu' with spring vegetables" looked off-puttingly dry but fell apart into lovely fibrous tentacles and melted on the tongue along with the baby carrots and miraculously tender cabbage leaves. They give you a court bouillon to pour over it, and a salsa verde to zhuzh it up. Carolyn's belly of pork had been braised, so the skin didn't crackle, but the rich belly texture, the layer of fat and the crushed potatoes with apple purée drew much praise.

Puddings were huge: my crème brûlée was a little runny but ambrosial; the English raspberry trifle was the most beautiful- looking dessert I've seen in ages, served in a round glass vase with sugared rose petals and almonds scattered across the surface. Disappointing, then, to find it lacked something crucial, and that something was custard. Carolyn was appalled to find the presence of jelly instead. "No proper trifle has jelly in it," she said firmly. "It's a class thing ..."

Maybe so, but there's nothing déclassé about Arbutus, which leaps straight into my top 10 London restaurants to show off to visiting friends. Charming, flavourful, imaginative, fags- and muzak-free and with that revolutionary wine policy, it breathes the atmosphere of a foodie shrine that knows exactly what it's doing.

Arbutus, 63-64 Frith Street, London W1, 020-7734 4545

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About £90 for two, à la carte, including wine. Lunchtime prix fixe £15.50 per head for 3 courses

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Dong San

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Imli

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