One delicious Italian

My, but Sunday nights are getting busy, aren't they? When I made my booking for top-notch, Michelin-starred Zafferano - described on its website as 'the best Italian restaurant in London' and the launch pad into the culinary stratosphere of Giorgio Locatelli - I asked for a table at 8pm, but was bumped to 9.15pm. And then - why is this so irritating? - was asked, via my voicemail, to ring back to confirm my booking. It's as if I was taking a long-haul flight on a dodgy African airline, not eating a meal.

Anyway, after all this, we arrived early. Big mistake. Though everyone seems happy to see you, you are swept downstairs to a seating area next to the Ladies and Gents, where you sit stiffly on sofas looking at copies of Caterer & Hotelkeeper magazine, which does not exactly get your evening off to a zinging start.

Our next mistake became clear as soon as we were shown our table. It was decked out in snowy linen, with sparkling cutlery and glasses, of course, but there was no doubt whatsoever that we were in the Wrong Room, while regulars, we sensed, were in the Right Room, a cosier affair with barebrick walls and jazzy red and blue seating with tables set at wacky angles (I think you have to ask to be in the 'small room' when you book - which you should. Eating at Zafferano is now on my shortlist of Things To Do Before You Die).

We were in a more formal, small dining room with Empire-style armchairs, terracotta-tiled floor and cream walls, but it was a little on the grown-up side, as were our neighbours - a German couple who winced theatrically at the smoke from our one cigarette; a Japanese threesome; and then more couples - mostly French, I think. So, what with the smooth Italian waiters, who were regulation-issue dark and handsome as Venetian princes, it felt very cosmopolitan indeed, on a rainy Sunday night in Knightsbridge.

I felt soothed, though, as soon as I opened the menu. I wanted to eat everything. Not just because I had spent six hours on the A303 that day on one tuna sandwich, and not just because my definition of a delicious meal is one that I have not had to shop for and prepare myself, but because... well, just listen.

Medaglioni di Aragosta con Fave e Peperoncino (lobster sautéed with broadbeans)... Risotto al Parmigiano con Foie Gras al Tartufo Nero (need I really translate?), Branzino alla Vernaccia (roasted sea bass with tomato crust and Vernaccia wine). How yummy is that?

Well, the answer is, almost indescribably yummy. My date had a salad of baby artichokes with parmesan, which arrived as a teetering hillock of greens and dense slivers of artichoke heart, bathed in a savoury dew of cheesy dressing and with a side order of one enormous pecorino crisp. I had a similarly Alpine confection of chopped asparagus and fresh white crabmeat, which was the freshest, lightest, quite simply the crabbiest salad I have ever tasted, which went down without touching the sides at all, so I was ravenous for what followed: langoustine risotto.

Which was my third and last mistake of the evening, because on deep and greedy reflection, and although I was virtually licking the plate, I still wish I'd gone for the more spectacular-sounding risotto with black truffles. Mine was fine, but as my date put it, just looking at it slopping about the plate reminded him that 'risotto was, basically, just flavoured rice'.

Despite all my risotto regrets, this restaurant lives up to its billing. It does indeed dish up some of the best Italian food in London. I would gladly eat at Zafferano seven nights a week (to be honest, I would gladly eat almost anything but my own cooking seven nights a week).

But the most exciting thing about it by far is the food, not the place, nor the clientele. Which is good news, there's no mistaking it.