Not a patch on its predecessor

Let's face it, 192 Kensington Park Road was, à l'époque, one of the chicest, sleekest places to eat not just in London, but anywhere in the dining universe, circa 1988.

I remember walking in one lunchtime as a student looking for work, and clocking the gratin of Notting Hill - regulars like Lucian Freud, the Pinters, George Melly, Helen Fielding - on its blue velvet banquettes, all having a high old time over delicious bottles of wine from the fabled cellar.

Designed by architect Tchaik Chassay on the site of a pine warehouse, 192 opened in 1982 and closed in 2002, aged 20, without ever growing old as we shall grow old.

It did not merely seem the height of sophistication, with its jewel hues and super-chefs like Rowley Leigh and Alastair Little. Even if it was the place that Bridget Jones swilled her Chardonnay, it was the height of sophistication. To me, anyway.

And now, in its place, we have... Luna Rossa, part of a mock-Neapolitan pizza chain, owned by the Made in Italy group. Eheu, as they would say in Ancient Rome. Alas.

Being an old 192 regular, I had sworn never to darken the doors of this unpleasant new addition to Kensington Park Road, where all the useful shops are in the process of closing and reopening as restaurants or boutiques or delis or coffee houses (the toyshop is reopening as a Cheesecake Factory, the laundrette as a Timberland. I rest my case).

As I passed, I would snort at the hideous irony of 192, the place that refracted the once-edgy allure of Notting Hill like a cut diamond, being replaced by an ersatz trattoria-pizzeria, with tiled tabletops, terracotta floors, and enough exposed brickwork to repoint Battersea Power Station. How the mighty are fallen.

On entering with my date, Tony Mackintosh (who else do you invite to Luna Rossa but the former co-owner of 192 and the Groucho himself?), there was all this and more: mock balconies with virgins inset in alcoves, and pots of fake geraniums. But one thing was missing: customers.

We sat at a lonely blue table and Tony told me what the new owners had cannily kept, despite the ghastly change in his old restaurant's appearance. 'Same stools, they've just re-covered the banquettes in blue plastic, same skylight, same shopfront,' he noted, grabbing a menu. 'But it's different, isn't it? Well, I suppose we'd better eat something.'

He ordered antipasti misti, a soup and a pizza, all to share. He's a big man, and we were hungry. But the only thing worth a second bite was the zuppa di salsiccia e fagioli, although I noticed we both avoided the sinister sections of brown sausage swimming in the red emulsion of tomato and bean.