An overbearing Italian

Brunello, the restaurant of the newly opened Baglioni Hotel opposite Kensington Palace, also aims to be user-friendly. The lobby-space restaurant, bar and lounge offers breakfast, dinner, lunch and tea, which, as Hilaire Belloc observed, is "all the human frame requires".

However, a difference in style from The Zetter could not be more marked. A study in grey, glass, streaming water, gilt and black, the decor uses pleated silk, velvet, linen, gold leaf and Murano glass to opulent boudoir effect.

Out-of-proportion artefacts such as towering vases and man-sized candles contribute a sort of Alice-in-Wonderland quality which comes as a refreshing change from minimalist good taste. Brunello could be accused of many things, but not that.

At lunchtime I was led to a shiny black table for two so wide that it was easier to listen to the couple at the next table a few inches away to one side than to my companion opposite. It seemed a rather foolish use of space.

I do my best to eat out incognito, with varying success, but my date for lunch, Anton Edelmann, brought a new kind of recognition as one ex-Savoy waiter after another rushed up to greet their former chef. A result was our modest one glass each of Brunello wine merrily topped-up and unrequested dessert wine brought to accompany our choices of tiramisu in a martini glass and champagne mousse with peach jelly and Moscato wine sabayon.

The preparation of those lacked finesse, a criticism that applied to the other dishes we tried. Good Italian food is the opposite of an overstated interior. Less is more.

A first course of warm beef carpaccio would first of all be better without the warmth and secondly and thirdly and fourthly, the rocket salad, Parmesan cheese and balsamic vinegar-based dressing.

Spaghetti with tomato sauce and basil, chosen for its potential simplicity, came dressed with a vapid sauce and topped with large pieces of skinned tomato and a bunch of basil leaves. I was told that pepper would be inappropriate on this dish, but when I said I would nevertheless quite like some, it was ground onto the rim of the plate.

Milanese rivisitata translated as modern-style Milanese veal chop featured the meat from the chop cut into chunks and breadcrumbed. They were cooked to just the right point but didn't benefit from sweet mustard sauce criss-crossed on the plate or a garnish of Chinese cabbage, a flavour inimical to Italian food.

Calves' liver was cut too thick and cooked too long. The advertised accompanying braised red onion appeared as deep-fried red onion rings which were rather good.