It's all rather OK!

The food at The Wolseley is irrelevant. It's not bad; in fact it's perfectly fine. Previously Michelin-starred head chef Chris Galvin may have dumbed down but he still knows his onions. However, it's not the menu that has the hordes flocking through its imposing doors.

No, this is vintage Chris Corbin and Jeremy King, two clever chaps whose forte is turning stuffy old numbers like The Ivy, the Caprice and J Sheekey's into impossible-tobook glamour magnets, by providing a deceptively easy-peasy-looking cocktail of superior but simple food and flawless service. And where they go, the famous and fabulouslooking follow. Which is why we can't show the interior - celebrity privacy, innit.

This glittering space used to be a car showroom, a bank and China House. It's a serious chunk of real estate, plonked right next to the Ritz, which is probably why it's open all hours - breakfast from 7am till supper at midnight.

The owners intend it to be 'a cafè/restaurant in the Grand European manner', and grand it certainly is. You even have to pass a uniformed doorman (allegedly poached from The Ivy at a cost of lots and lots) to reach your table.

Despite booking as soon as phone lines went live, we were - like you probably would be - corralled into Siberia, in fact, the bit of Siberia that Siberians get sniffy about. Our view of the lav door was less stellar than we would have liked. Tables are so close together you end up inadvertent best pals with the punters on either side.

The place to be is the centre enclosure, where tables are better spaced and the action unfolds in front of you. Because, make no mistake, this is theatre, dahlings. Here was the eye candy: women sporting elaborate coiffures, crépey cleavages and the tell-tale gaze of surgical procedures; a clutch of somewhat superannuated celebs: Sir Paul Smith and Sirsinwaiting Bryan Ferry and Nicky Haslam. OK!-generation heaven.

Hotdogs, hashes and stews jostle oysters, foie gras and caviar on the menu: perfect for an audience of men looking for indulgence and women looking for low-cal. A porcini risotto was deeply flavoured, with the right ratio of bite to gloopiness; dressed crab was actually naked - no shell: perky and creamily mayonnaised. Hungarian goulash - from a dish of the day list which came over like a Lower East Side Polish diner - was a very red, over-paprika-ed stew with chewy little buckwheat spaetzle (noodly dumplings). A teeny-weeny Welsh rarebit had a brilliant topping but a soggy Mother's Pride-y base. My hamburger featured lukewarm, too lean meat: a girl's blouse of a burger.

But who cared? Seduced by the buzz - we can all be a sucker for it sometimes - we stayed into the small hours.

So we went back to see if, on a Sunday afternoon, the buzz was still there. It was. This time we were allowed into the holy of holies alongside the serious-looking luvvies; our delightful little ex-Sheekey's waiter even recognised me. Oh, how easily one can get used to the joy of belonging.

Pastry chef Claire Clark is, in her field, as much of a name as Galvin, and her deft touch with a cake - decadent, rum-drenched fruit savarins; bitter chocolate and raspberry tarts; a glorious fig and blueberry financier - were the highlights of our afternoon tea, which, at £15, is nearly half the price quoted by the Ritz next door.