Perfect parfait but no soul

Like many other people in the food business, I watched with appalled fascination as the rumours about Marco Pierre White's appearance on Hell's Kitchen turned into car-crash reality. Oh, nothing against the show itself, which is just your average sleb-baiting pap. It's just that White - the coolest chef in the universe as far as I'm concerned - should have condescended to do it.

Why? Why should this genius, the youngest Briton to win three Michelin stars, the mad-eyed, swoonworthy (yes, sorry) maverick sell out so spectacularly? Why should he follow in the footsteps of his former protege and famous rival, Big Sweary Gordon, to endure the televisual equivalent of sloppy seconds? The whole circus must have eaten away at his soul like a vast, metaphysical tapeworm.

It's this conundrum that made HK so horribly watchable: you could almost feel White's pain seeping out of the screen. The whisper on the foodie street was that it could be money, pure and simple, that motivated the bizarre move; despite his high-profile portfolio of restaurants (Mirabelle, The Criterion, Drones, Frankie's Italian Bar & Grill with jockey Frankie Dettori) suggestions have been made that loot could be very, very important.

Witness his championing of the Knorr stock cube. And HK's rampaging product placements of Heinz Ketchup and Worcestershire sauce. Nothing wrong with 'em, but you see where I'm coming from?

Anyway. When other A-list chefs open restaurants, you hear about it for months in advance. White's new place has opened with hardly a ripple, other than a smattering of gossip mag pics of him with his arms round HK winner Barry McGuigan. Marco's former PR guy, the legendary Alan Crompton-Batt (RIP), was a whizz at whipping up interest without disseminating any actual facts; I'm almost disappointed when the release finally plops unheralded into my inbox.

So it's at Stamford Bridge - Chelsea football ground, of course - in what used to house super-chippy Harry Ramsden's. It's been designed in a luxe, 1980s-nightclub style which certainly delivers the full swank - Swarovskistudded columns, marble bar, 'velvet mink' seating. What it lacks in insouciance it makes up for in conspicuous consumption.

There's an almost defiantly odd menu, retro and luxurious like our surroundings. Look! Three treatments of foie gras on the starter list alone! Two appearances for Dover sole! There are numerous White standards: that parfait, lamb with clams, morelstuffed pig's trotter. This is clearly deliberate, but it's contrary nonetheless. But with White, you expect contrariness.

Childishly, we're tempted to order white asparagus so we can complain like the unfortunate HK punter that they're cold and there are too many of them. But we want to stay for the duration of our dinner and head for oysters and foie instead.

The parfait of foie gras is a dish that's featured in every White restaurant I've ever eaten in and it's as perfect as ever: so sheeny and symmetrical it looks plastic, but rich, silky and strongly flavoured in its sparkling pool of truffled, vinous gelee.

Oysters are also jellied, champagne this time, on a bed of rock salt. They're oddly tepid which makes each mouthful a slippery, snotty challenge. The best dish is a Bresse pigeon wrapped in foie gras and cabbage leaves, a magnificent meeting of seasonal earthiness and luxury, but it's bloody instead of the requested (not by me, honest) medium.