Grille is very grating

Finally the perfect restaurant and bar combination... a touch of Parisian bistro-chic mixed with the New York vibe, served up in the heart of one of London's hippest locations gives you The Hoxton Grille.'

Are you bored yet? I know I am. And if I weren't grinding my teeth with ennui at that little opening gem from the restaurant's publicity team, I would be gnashing them with irritation at this most banal and mendacious opening.

Take the name: it's boll**ks. The Hoxton Grille is in Shoreditch. Perhaps the owners thought that by tweaking the geography the punters would pile in, desperate to score a touch of edgy, hipster gloss.

Of course, any true Londoner knows that the real movers have, well, moved. But the owners are northerners, the chaps behind 'the acclaimed Room Restaurants'. (Acclaimed by whom? Not even my Glaswegian compatriots enjoyed their - now defunct - Room restaurant starring oh-so-ironic chicken Kiev and 'Pot Noodle'.) They probably figure nobody will notice.

I should probably blame the owner of the spanking new hotel in which the Grille (even that extra 'e' grates) resides. But Sinclair Beecham of the Pret A Manger chain has tried to do something truly groundbreaking here - cheap, pleasant, Central London hotel rooms - so I forgive him.

His tenants, however, are a different kettle of salmon fishcakes. The Hoxton Grille is not groundbreaking: it's a mishmash of everybody else's successful ideas, boiled down into a tasteless, anodyne, bare-brick-leather-banquetteetchedglass cliche.

I can imagine the team responsible trolling round London's hotspots with Dictaphones muttering: 'Gloucester Old Spot. Oversized lampshades. Fish and chips. DJ. Daily special. Open kitchen,' all to be regurgitated for our dining pleasure.

We had the odd reasonable dish: there was nothing wrong with my potted shrimps, proper, teeny brown jobs with the unexpected fillip of Melba toast. Bread was good. A 'Grille' house salad was an inoffensive assembly of artichoke, mozzarella and leaves.

We also ate some terrible food: 'Roast Haughley chicken with sauce chasseur' tasted, most weirdly, of Oddfellows sweets: mustily scented and sugary - I suspect catering pack demi-glace.

The potatoes were raw, not undercooked, raw. Our waiter had no idea what kind of fish came with the chips; it was so entombed in a brittle, brown carapace of thick, oil-soaked batter that neither did I. Mushy peas? Don't make me laugh.