No spark at Apsleys

They say you should never go back. Not to relationships (there's always a good reason why they ended). Nor to school reunions. Especially not to school reunions. The cliques you despised remain exactly the same and you realise there was a good reason why you lost touch with most of your class. As Oscar Wilde said: 'The one charm of the past is that it is the past.' Quite.

What brought the past to mind this week was a visit I paid to an old haunt of mine, The Lanesborough hotel; that dreamy, creamy neo-classical pile that sits bang opposite Hyde Park and always has a Roller parked outside. (Does it belong to anyone, or is it just there to encourage showy punters?)

Inside the hotel, the famous Conservatory used to be my favourite place for afternoon tea. Indeed, it was voted the best teatime venue in London and was the only one that served homemade lemon curd. With its giant jardinières and faux Chinese décor, the room was considered by many to be a little over the top, but that was part of its charm.

But now there has been a 'refurbishment'. The Conservatory has been turned into a restaurant called Apsleys, which you'll agree is a rather odd choice for an Italian eating place, but since its speciality is Umbrian cooking, I felt excitedly expectant as I went to meet an American friend for lunch there who, like us, has a house in Umbria.

The Lanesborough has always been the least intimidating of grand hotels and I was reassured to see that the floral displays in the public areas were as exotic as ever. And then I wandered into The Conservatory and felt like Gail Platt in Coronation Street, who returned from holiday to find that the entire downstairs of her house had been redecorated. No, on second thoughts, this was worse than being Gail Platt. This looked as if Kelly Hoppen had been let loose on the place. Everything you hate most about a professional interior design job was here. All the splendid flamboyance has disappeared and been replaced by hideous panels in shades of beige, broken up (and I use the phrase advisedly) by an unsightly maroon trim. The carpet looks like something you'd find in a cut-price cruise ship, and the haphazard seating layout only adds to the impression of being all at sea. Replacement windows encircling the roof give the diner a bird's-eye view of a woman dragging a vacuum cleaner along like a reluctant dog. Still, just because the décor was no longer to my taste didn't mean the food would necessarily follow suit, and the three-course lunch menu is offered at a very reasonable £24.

First signs were good. The staff - if a little lacking in confidence - went out of their way to provide good service. We were brought a variety of the most delicious breads along with two types of olive oil. The Umbrian oil was so good that we munched our way through all the bread as we discussed Obama's trip to the Middle East and wondered if he would be proactive about climate change. My friend had just flown in from a sultry New York where, she said, the overuse of air conditioning alone must get through the output of a small oil well each week, and was heartened by a piece in a UK newspaper that damned the notion that the world's carbon problem will be solved by lots of little tweaks by made-tofeel-guilty Western consumers. Amen.

I started with tagliatelle in a butter and truffle sauce which was decadently rich and gleamed on the plate in pale, speckled strands. My friend chose wild boar prosciutto with a salad of radish, celeriac and kohlrabi (which sounds like a religion Gwyneth Paltrow or Madonna - yawn - might embrace). Although it was pretty, she said it tasted bland. Her main course of roasted pike was good enough. I applaud the use of this neglected fish - a fantastic Umbrian delicacy - but she wasn't sure about the aesthetic appeal of putting beetroot in a sauce that made her whole plate look as if it was covered in summer pudding. I made the mistake of choosing sweetbreads (there were only two choices for each course), which looked like overcooked chicken nuggets and tasted indescribably awful. The two ice-cream-based puddings were over-rich, with too many competing flavours.

It was an intensely disappointing experience, despite the best efforts of the sweet, worried-looking staff. I could forgive the ill-advised revamp if only the food had been prepared with a little thought. Sadly, this new restaurant is past its best before it's begun. 'Never go back' is a maxim I wish I'd stuck to.

Aspleys
Lanesborough Place, London, SW1X 7TA