Giorgio performs great works

This review was published in February 2002

Locanda Locatelli is just brilliant. There, you don't even need to bother reading the rest of this review now; basically, that's all you need to know.

But should you want the full details, be prepared to look askance at your breakfast muffin, because the food at Giorgio Locatelli's newly-opened restaurant is designed to bring on a serious case of food envy.

Throughout our meal, there wasn't a missed beat or duff note: this was the closest to culinary perfection I've encountered in many a long dinner.

First of all, the place looks great. It's a new restaurant so it must be David Collins, but here he's wrought marvels. Despite being attached to the unreconstructedly bland Churchill Inter-Continental Hotel, it just oozes class. There's not a wasted corner in the room and you'd be hard pushed to identify 'Siberia' (those tables no-one wants): he's even managed to make tables for two and those marooned in the centre of the room look like showpieces.

Intimacy is encouraged by low lighting and glass screens ingeniously etched to look like muslin drapes; colours are neutral and creamy and expensive-looking. A bit like the clientele: not even in my more rarified recent dining moments have I seen a room in which so many pores breathed so much money. (Conversational snippet from the next table: 'I can get you the whole weekend for 50 grand - and that includes all the condoms you can use.')

So it's a real surprise that it's so reasonably priced - you should be able to eat like a potentate for about £30 a head without wine; drinkers can dive into an all-Italian list which starts at a remarkable £12 and features loads of choices under £20.

And that's not the only generosity: as we sipped excellent vodka martinis in the bar while waiting for our table we were brought delicious, yard-long parmesan grissini. Then marinated olives, peppers and fabulous silvery little onions. Then focaccia topped with caramelised red onion. Then tiny home-baked rolls filled with silky prosciutto. It brought us to almost the who-needs-dinner stage.

Thank goodness we persevered: my starter wins my personal award for dish of the decade. Tiny, hand-formed gnocchi incorporating wild mushrooms-into the potato dough were sizzled in butter with crisped sage then topped with a delirious amount of shaved black truffle. The nuttiness of the butter, fragrance of the herb and musky boskiness of the fungus came together to form a subtle taste with the addictive quality of the finest bitter chocolate. Awesome. Equally good but with a more up-front punch were parcels of translucent pasta stuffed with minced red onion in a powerful sauce of reduced Chianti.

More altruism on the portion front: a massive bacon-bound slab of pork fillet tasting of happy pig (believe me, that's a desirable quality in pork) sat on a bed of garlicky spinach, surrounded by borlotti beans and was crowned with a crust of Mostarda di Frutta, that intriguing mustard-infused fruit condiment from Cremona. Breast of duck came with an extra, unbilled confit leg and a compelling accompaniment of almost-raw broccoli, chilli and spelt. Like everything else we ate, it tasted of itself - heightened and enhanced, not bludgeoned, by its garnishes.

Puddings, unusually for an Italian restaurant, showed real imagination and sounded truly tempting but you'll have to go elsewhere for the lowdown as we couldn't manage any more food. In fact, we could hardly move.

Throughout our meal, Locatelli emerged frequently from his kitchen, surveying the busy dining room with a look of proprietorial concern tinged with anxiety on his grave and handsome face. As far as I'm concerned, he needn't worry - if the standard is maintained, he's destined to have a roaring success on his skilled and deserving hands.