A fishy philosophy

There's something about foodie worthiness that brings me out in hives. That holier-than-thou, we-only-eat-organic, you-who-touch-foie-gras-shall-be-consigned-to-the-darkness sort of preachifying has the effect of sending me screaming to the nearest KFC ('Can I get that Zinger with extra foie?').

Please don't get me wrong: I'm an avid supporter of small producers, independent stores and sympathetic rearing, of slow food and seasonality and chemical avoidance. The more people who are turned off the supermarket chiller cabinets, the better, I say.

It's the po-facedness that sets my teeth on edge: food should be a pleasure, not a source of guilt (as if the calories aren't enough) or an opportunity to look down from the moral high ground.

So now we're not supposed to eat a whole bunch of fish. The only thing is, trying to get the definitive answer on what we can eat with a clear conscience and what we can't is enough to test the patience of a saint. Icelandic cod is OK, or was that last year? Your fish fingers don't come with an 'endangered species' sticker.

Over to Deep, a new restaurant whose owner and chef, Swede Christian Sandefeldt, is trying to ensure that every single fishy served on his dishies is from a sustainable source. And your bill comes with a £1 extra charge, to be sent to the World Wildlife Fund to help support its work.

It's a clean, almost clinical space, designed by the team behind Jamie Oliver's Fifteen, in the same newly built block of flats as Yi-Ban. Even the privileged riverside location cannot give this area a personality and though Deep, with its luxurious furnishings and colour-changing light panels, struggles manfully, it has a hard job on its hands.

The philosophy may be commendable but is the food any good? Mostly, yes. As you'd expect, the menu features unusual choices such as perch and zander. There are Norwegian prawns, Irish rock oysters, Scottish prawns and Devon crab.

A selection of 'herring' (some of it turned out to be turbot and perch, herringified), traditional sweet cures and nouveau cures with the likes of tomato and wasabi, with slices of cheese (!) and new potatoes, was a splendid, intriguing plateful.

My arctic caviar (from whitefish, vivid orange like salmon roe but teenier and less salty) came with chopped red onion, sour cream and the largest blini I've ever seen. Good, though: warm, pillowy, with the nuttiness of buckwheat.

Simplicity was the order of the day in a dish of turbot, a linenwhite chunk on the bone, perfectly roasted and served with a citrus salad and a strangely appealing mush of white beans. In my main course, the muddy taste of perch was disguised by an almost caramelly bisque scented with vanilla, fine woody morels and onion gnocchi - dense, doughy dumplings, fried for extra heft.