Curry turns cool

Every year, Motcomb Street holds a street party, a peoplewatcher's paradise. Not many know that it's open to the hoi polloi - I like to go accessorised by buggy, Rothmans and acrylic clothing out of sheer mischief.

It offers a brilliant opportunity for an anthropological study of the wealthy at play: willowy blondes dressed in Moschino with 70-year-old faces; purple-faced pinstripes performing outrageous moves to the band and cream linen-clad children puzzled by the primitiveness of Mr Punch. Oh, all right then, I go to gawp.

I live in fear of being moved on for brandishing a body larger than size eight. This handsome neighbourhood is the preserve of the slender and the local restaurants cater to their rarefied tastes. You can spot female denizens nibbling on rocket salad at Zafferano. But you'd never hear them utter, 'Fancy an Indian?'. Until now.

The arrival of Amaya in an arcade off Motcomb Street looks likely to add a new number into their BlackBerries. It's brought to us by Camellia, Namita and Ranjit Panjabi, the dynamic trio behind groundbreaking 'Indian' restaurants such as Chutney Mary and Masala Zone. If anyone can tempt the Indian-phobic through their doors, it's this lot.

It looks sublime, a heady mix of dark woods, ethereal chandeliers and imposing statues. The space has been divided into sections: there's a sultry bar, large round tables near the windows, and a raised section next to the kitchen. And what a kitchen - it's entirely open so that you can watch the bustling chefs; there are dazzling displays of infused oils and fresh vegetables.

A headily delicious scent snakes out to meet you. 'This smells like India,' said the date.

The menu, too, is split into sections based on the tandoor, sigri or charcoal grill and the tawa, an iron hotplate. Like its spiritual siblings, Ubon and Zuma, it's one of those confusing jobs where you don't know how to order and end up either in too-little-food or too-much-money mode. So we went for chef Karunesh Khanna's tasting menu, which at £30 for 11 different things seemed to represent blinding value.

It was nice. No more, no less. Mostly a bit emasculated, a bit sanitised: Indian-lite. Which, with the likes of a calorie and carbcounted option, I suppose it is.

Some highlights: minced chicken in lettuce parcels came across like a Thai/Vietnamese hybrid with its aromatics muted; hamour - or spotted grouper - came in pandan leaves, firm-fleshed and fragrant with mustard and chilli; big bouncy tandoori prawns were gorgeous, meltingly succulent and vividly spiced; a chicken biryani featured ravishing rice: nutty, buttery and aromatic.

But white sweet potato with sweetened tamarind and yoghurt was like a misguided pudding, shanks of lamb had been tandooried into impenetrability and a finale of lamb curry had little more personality than an Irish stew.

We ordered one extra dish, dori kebab, a Lucknow speciality based on lamb processed into an almost liquid paste. It arrived looking unnervingly like a skinned Herta hotdog.

So fragile is this beast that it has to be detached from its skewer by unzipping with an interior string, whereupon it morphed into those fags stuffed with fat used in the antismoking ads. These may not have turned me off the snout, but they've done that for the dori kebab.

Still, I really liked Amaya: it's a clever contemporary spin on Indian cooking, managing to make it cool and stylish in a way that the likes of Tamarind and Zaika never have. One of these days I might even be rich and thin enough to look like I belong.