Laurence's shady venture

The unique talent of Britain's most famous pantomime dame has once again been unleashed on the hospitality industry, and the beneficiary of Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen's unbridled creativity on this occasion is a new bar, restaurant and private room in refurbished premises overlooking Greenwich Park.

Llewelyn-Bowen seems to be going through his lampshade period - a rite of passage, no doubt, for every TV dandy - with an eclectic collection of glass and polished chrome chandeliers and shades. The decor throughout is attractive and appropriate, with a mix of dark and light hues, softened here and there with small, feminine, floral displays in the style of Llewelyn-Bowen. But enough of him.

The Greenwich Park Bar And Grill is trying to be all things to all people, with a contemporary bar on the ground floor (complete with a decent outside space at the front of the building and a sizeable beer garden at the rear), a fancy-pants restaurant on the first floor and a second-floor function room that is meant to cater for parties of Greenwich's glitterati - if there is such a thing.

The ground-floor, openallday bar is almost a workaday, tourist attraction, with a drinks offering of continental lagers that includes Stella Artois, Staropramen, Belle Vue Kriek cherry beer and Framboise, which are served by a team of excruciatingly pretty - for which read: pretty blooming useless - girls who, to be fair, tried valiantly to hold it together in the absence of an experienced leader and without the benefit of proper tuition (most struggled with the basic task of pulling a pint).

It is the food that seems to be such ambitious folly. During the day the menu is fine, with salads, pancakes, omelettes and burgers, but in the evening they leave the menus on display even though they don't serve food in the evening. If you want to eat, you need to go upstairs, which I did, and order overly fancy stuff such as a mild chilli and Mexican chocolatemarinated rack of lamb, with a flageolet and pancetta bean stew, wilted spinach and a caramelised onion and goat's cheese salad (£14.95).

One of the reasons I wasn't happy eating there was that our waitress couldn't explain anything on the menu - again, she was lovely, but the chef hadn't bothered to brief any of the staff before service.

I did ask our waitress if one of my friends could order something simple from the bar menu, given that he was recovering from a delicate tummy, but was refused. And I got quite cross when the first two of my wine options were eventually discovered to be unavailable. There are only 10 wines on the menu for the restaurant, and I was seriously struggling to find a decent third option.

This schizophrenic place is trying to have so many identities I can't decide which one I like least, and my guess is that the little old ladies who like the restaurant won't like going down to the boisterous bar to use the facilities, nor will they like Greenwich's glitterati whooping it up in the room above.

There is an urgent need to rethink everyone and everything about this place - apart from Llewelyn-Bowen, that is, who would probably make a terrific waitress.

Greenwich Park Bar & Grill
1 King William Walk, SE10 9JY