Makeover misses the mark

With its dim, cocooning, faux-deco basement and lashings of pseudo-American comfort food, Smollensky's On The Strand played out to a nannied clientele who couldn't get enough of the rather good burgers, steaks, onion rings and ice cream sundaes. And their children ('I wanna balloooon!').

But a recent, big-bucks refurb has seen the place dragged willy-nilly into the 21st century. Any vestiges of personality have been ripped out and replaced with the kind of anodyne restaurant good taste - bare bricks, stripped wood, geometric lampshades, sludgy, fudgy colour scheme - that screams corporate design team. The new windows looking over an atmospheric church are beautiful, though.

The new menu is also modelling a more contemporary look. We tried old and new school: a blue cheese burger that had shrunk miserably and looked embarrassed in its new ciabatta overcoat; and a heroically vile rabbit dish with black olives.

A mucousy swamp of lumpy, over-floured sauce had been coughed all over some violently braised rabbit, a sad, mulchy creature whose tiny bones made the date gag. She gave up after two bites but no questions were asked by the harried-looking staff. Smollensky's is trying to be all grown-up now. But what we get, like a five-year-old in mama's Jimmy Choos, is an awkward, shambling performance.

A meal for two with wine, water and service costs about £80. 105 Strand WC2. Tel: 020 7497 2101. Tube: Charing Cross

Smollensky's
Strand, London, WC2R 0AB