Hit and miss @ Tamesa

Tamesa@Oxo is bright and buzzing with a youthful and attractive bunch (so much so that my requested window table didn't materialise until later in the evening).

It also sits in an iconic building with ravishing views over the river, the latest in a line of restaurants that have tried to make a go of the space.

And the menu is a clever and reasonably priced collection of crowd-pleasers from traditional British to exotica. So why didn't I warm to it?

The name. Maybe it's that tricksy @. Then there's the primary-coloured, clattery coldness of the decor - like a giant municipal playroom, a sensation reinforced by the games of Jenga being played in the bar.

Staff are either surly (our barman), sweetly inept (our first waitress) or overbearingly superior (the saturnine chap who took over when we finally moved to our window seat).

Nor is the food entirely fabulous. We liked the smoked haddock risotto, properly al dente, but its poached egg was hard. And good seafood soup was treated to such an overdose of saffron that it tasted medicinal.

Haddock pie (smoked again, who knew?) bore a crust far away from its thin, soupy contents. And what's with the weirdly poo-like coils of mashed potato, served with both pie and my invalid-food chicken boudin?

Tamesa@Oxo could have been a runner; instead, it feels like a missed opportunity.

Tamesa @ Oxo
Second Floor, Oxo Tower Wharf, Barge House Street, SE1