Fresh air

Visitors to Chelsea will no doubt be familiar with the Dome cafe bar, a landmark King's Road venue which for more than a decade saw to the foreseeable needs of local topers, shoppers and tourists.

The Dome then went the same way as the Millennium Dome, became largely ignored - bad management, perhaps, to blame on both counts - and eventually sat empty for a period of time. I think Londoners were all domed out after the Millennium.

During the Chelsea Dome's period of rehabilitation it became a Babushka for a short period of time, and then a branch of the curiously named Mojama group of bars. Then, late last year, the place closed again and underwent yet another refurbishment, this time by the people behind the neighbouring Bardo cocktail bar on the Fulham Road - a favourite of Prince Harry.

It has now emerged as Beaufort House, and looks every inch as elegant and distinguished as its aristocratic-sounding name suggests. The substantial ground-floor room has been coloured in hues of cream and brown, and a comfortable mix of low-slung sofas and formal dining furniture surround the central island bar.

It's a non-smoking cafebar operation during the day and opens early in the morning for very good quality English and continental breakfasts (muesli, bagels, waffles, pancakes, etc) and then moves on to a lunch menu that includes moules, club sandwiches, burgers and the like. The 'all-day' brunch menu - eggs Benedict (£7.50), full English breakfast (£8) etc - isn't an all-day menu, they stop serving food at 3.30pm.

Nothing much happens in the post 3.30pm slot - afternoon tea might be a nice idea - save for the placement of ashtrays on the tables in readiness for the evening shift of posh punters piling in for after-work cocktails. And the cocktails are of a superior standard (Martinis start at £6 and rise to no more than £7 for a champagne cocktail), if a smidgen on the sweet side for my desert-dry palate.

The wine list is woefully short (five white, four red and a rosé) and keenly priced with a Chilean sauvignon blanc running in cheapest at £16.50 a bottle. Draught Guinness and the wife-beating lager Stella Artois are also available.

Food isn't available in the evenings, which I think is a schoolboy error. I can't spend a night drinking cocktails without eating or I literally would end up on the tiles, but then perhaps I'm not their target audience.

Their daytime offer will undoubtedly attract a good following of shoppers and locals - especially when they deign to post a menu visible to passers-by - and the evening cocktail crowd will probably come from far and wide to enjoy the, for the most part, quality drinks.

Scary men are already manning the door on certain nights, suggesting the services of rent-a-mob promoters are being utilised. But Beaufort House is well worth a punt, it is breathing a new air of glamour along the fast-becoming homogenised King's Road.

Beaufort House
354 King's Road, SW3 5UZ