No thrill at The Grill

After just one flawless Grey Goose martini in the Connaught bar, I wanted to move in. I wanted to surround myself with the fusty glamour of a bygone age: the genteelly worn damasks, gilded paintings, squashy sofas and flattering table lamps. I loved the Connaught staff, too, with their urbane charm and punctilious approach: a devastatingly difficult-to-achieve mix of affability, distance and the service ethic.

It was only when we took our table in The Grill that the euphoria dissipated. Here, the atmosphere wasn't so much sybaritic, more kind of clenched. It was only the second night of opening, and this Gordon Ramsay operation was perhaps imbued with the spirit of its notoriously irascible patron; whatever - our meal wasn't what you'd call a fun night out. I've done more than my share of high-end dining and I'm well aware that it's not the sort of environment for country-and-western singing, but this was positively po-faced.

The Grill is one of two spaces in the Connaught - the other is the larger Menu - that have been remade and remodelled by Ramsay, just as he did at Claridge's.

There's already been a lot of huffing and puffing from the likes of Stephen Fry about the desecration of a national treasure; Ramsay has replied in his trademark ya-boo-sucks manner. But in reality, there's little to alarm the regulars: relax, it's as stuffy as ever. And although head chef Angela Hartnett - a long-standing Ramsay protègèe - has promised cooking that's 'modern European with an Italian flavour', there's a lot of classicism: ballotines, veloutès, confits; fondues; bouillons. As the ultimate sop to the reactionaries, The Grill even boasts a separate menu of 'Connaught classics'.

Maybe it was early-doors teething problems (at full prices, natch) but our food was less than impressive. My ballotine of ham hock was a solid little number, sound meat circling a tiny nugget of foie gras; it came with a 'salad' of tart green apple and some bullet-hard chickpeas. Squid ink pasta with Cromer crab might have been fabulous - sweet meat, toothsome home-made tagliatelle (more like linguine, if you ask me) - but who knew? It was poleaxed by an impossible amount of salt.

Main courses featured excellent meat, but their treatment verged on the arbitrary. Velvety folds of venison loin were served with minuscule dice of confit turnip, the odd barely visible trompette de mort mushroom and slices of pear. Only peering closely through my new bifocals offered up this info; my tastebuds-were battling a thuggish, tooreduced sauce. Red wine? Port? Thick cylinders of veal fillet were served medium rare - without consultation; they were billed as coming with braised vegetables and port wine and truffle jus. The latter came from the same gravy boat that had anointed my venison: hey, so that's what it was. Dousing both dishes with the same sauce was a bizarre move. The whole thing was the stuff of posh-ish wedding receptions.

So much for the food; the staff were another matter. Apart from a heavenly sommelier, they needed to look to their Connaught counterparts. Ramsay's never going to be an easy boss, but this lot were like coiled springs. The maitre d' in particular was an unhappy alliance of superiority and patronisation. On bringing the pudding menu - requested because the £38-a-head price was all-inclusive - he announced: 'Here it is, ladies, the moment you've been waiting for.' I see: we're girlies, marking time till we get to the sweeties.

Other staff were either all over us or nowhere to be seen. Having scoured the room for someone to pour wine from one of those chrome contraptions, I took matters into my own hands. Result: a red wine bath for my date and an inappropriate fit of hilarity from me. The maitre d's reaction? 'S**t happens.'

With wine at £26, a cocktail, a pudding wine and tip, we paid 160 notes. The place is already booked out. Perhaps that'll put a smile on Gordon Ramsay's face.

The Terrace
Carlos Place, Mayfair, W1K 2AL