Dining goes digital at Inamo

My relationship with the name Inamo, brief though it is, has been one of peaks and troughs. At first it sounded promising, enigmatically poised somewhere between Japan and China, like a fictional land in the novels of Haruki Murakami, or at least one of the finely tuned restaurants — Hakkasan, Busaba, Yauatcha — of Alan Yau. Or else it was a Latin verb (inamo, inamas, inamat.) Then, with a lurch and plummet, realisation dawned: it’s in-a-mo, as in "in a moment". Geddit?

Its big idea is that your table is an interactive screen, where by pointing and clicking you can find your menu, see pictures of each item, and order. The frustration of waggling fingers or tinging glasses to get waiters’ attention is consigned to the same dustbin of history as the night soil men who once disposed of London’s sewage. Waiters become people who flit out of the shadows to place dishes on the table, flitting away again without eye contact.

You can also personalise your décor by choosing from a range of patterns and colours that glow from the table like a Kowloon nightscape. The table can order taxis for you and show you bus maps. You can play battleships with your co-diner, should conversation flag.

In the future, no doubt, the tables will allow courting couples virtually to flutter their fingertips, praise the lustre of each other’s eyes and offer invitations home for coffee. After that the tables will be able to propose marriage and discuss shared mortgages and pensions.

It’s a gimmick with a capital G, and one that feels out of time — isn’t high-concept stuff like this what you do at the top of a boom? But it’s fun for all that, and you should go once just for the ride.

The general look is futuristic-
digital, crossed with Far East kitsch. The light gleams pale blue, pink and mauve, and your drinks and food tend to end up looking yellow-green.

Whether you go a second time will depend on the food (I almost forgot the food). The style is Oriental fusion and the chef is ex-Nobu and ex-Hakkasan. Whether this means he departed these places in a hail of woks and curses, or with tearful pleas and financial inducements to stay, I don’t know, but Inamo is not up to their standards.

In Inamo’s spirit of digital efficiency I will record the dishes as follows. Edamame: soggy. Spring rolls: a nicely crispy and futuristic translucent crust. Steak on a hot stone: good meat, well cooked. Neck of pork: disturbingly chilly and uneven temperature. Crispy prawns, marinated quail, miso soup, pomegranate duck: all OK. Wild boar rolls: intriguing. Sake martini: ditto. Roast banana with something or other: cleaning fluid.

Overall effect: a surfeit of sticky gunk, a lack of freshness in the taste, and frightening swings from the good to the truly horrible. I found myself ordering a whisky at the end to purge my palate of lingering acridity.

Inamo exploits the same neurons as eBay. Mesmerised by the magic of clicking, you find yourself ordering the culinary equivalent of William Shatner LPs and vintage Teasmades, and before you know it you ’re paying £40 a head. What is that? Did I order it? The table says you did.

With so much effort invested in the electronic tables, the management don’t yet seem to be in control of the kitchen. I truly hope that they manage this. As I say, the idea is fun and there is even some decent food struggling to get out.

There is also a selfish reason for wishing them success, as it would allow me to close with a line that is otherwise denied me: I’ve seen the future — and it’s woks.