Playing the Percento game

The Red Noses of March are beginning to seem like a distant memory, but a belated "thank you" to all of you who wrote to me and contributed funds towards Comic Relief 2001. The lure was a reviewing sortie; first name to emerge from the battered felt hat was that of Alistair Peel from Theydon Bois. When I rung Alistair, it emerged that he loved Italian wines and worked near St Paul's. We decided to put the two together with a Friday-night swoop on Percento, the newest addition to the Etrusca group's portfolio.

Our hearts sank as we walked through the front door into what appeared to be just another noisy bar. (Most of Ludgate Hill is now occupied by noisy bars; the limpid musical beauty of daily evensong in St Paul's, as the office day closes, is by comparison almost secret.)

To our relief, stairs led down to the restaurant. This lower place is eerily bright, with one wall seemingly made of illuminated water, another of sand, and a third mirrored; the effect is of a strange interplanetary daylight. Emerging into the darkness later came as a disagreeable surprise; we thought we were half-way to Alpha Centauri by then.

Nor was that the only shock. The journey to the toilets takes you past a silent gym. What's going on? In turns out that Percento occupies the basement of a subscription hotel for corporate voyagers called Club Quarters. Perhaps the restaurant's name is designed to make the money men up above feel at home.

Alistair himself, at any rate, is a venture capitalist, and our incipient relaxation was furthered by the easy friendliness of assistant manager Agostino Lopez (who will go far in hospitality).

As befits a man who has chosen Prosecco for his own forthcoming wedding, Alistair began with a glass of Franciacorta Cuvée Brut from Bellavista (£7 plus 12.5 per cent service) and enjoyed its surprisingly biscuity depths; I sipped the only Italian white available by the glass, Pieropan's charmingly oily '97 Soave (£6.75). The wine list is organised by grape variety, which is educational as far as Italy is concerned; it also encourages comparisons between Italian wines and their international rivals. The sommelière,

Medusa-haired Rosalba Poletti, seemed diffident when we asked for advice at first, but soon steered us into uncharted waters; we ended, more abruptly than I had intended, with a bottle of Elisabetta Geppetti's 1998 Morellino di Scansano Riserva (£37.60) to accompany Alistair's rabbit and my grilled calf's liver. Any doubts I had about this marshland DOC faded when we tasted it. This was certainly the best Morellino I have ever drunk, its stealthy oak lending it an enticing aromatic sheen, and its soft, sumptuous, tongue-wallowing fruits and ripe, thigh-soft tannins making it gratifyingly easy drinking. It's the kind of wine which needs recommendation. Job done, Rosalba.

The antipasti were vivid, fresh and simple: Alistair got his dose of liver (chicken) sautéed on leaf spinach with caramelised apple; I had four sticks of green asparagus tucked away beneath mixed leaves, finely sliced and sautéed artichokes and an inspired Parmesan "crisp". So far, so Italian. Both of us, though, had trouble with mad seasoning in our main courses; indeed the spinach, on which my languid slices of liver lay, tasted as if it had been cooked in the Dead Sea.

A pity, since the sweet and melting offal needed some sort of vegetable foil. Alistair's pot-roasted saddle of rabbit was a little less sodium-heavy, and the timbale of wild rice was pleasingly chewy. Cheeses were dull (a half-decent Pecorino with boring old Bel Paese and Stilton), but they did give Alistair a chance to try the appealingly named Terre Arse Marsala Vergine from Florio (£5.29 for a 100ml glass), all buttered walnuts and Lampedusa-like refinement. (Terre Arse, Rosalba explained primly, means "baked earth").

My dessert, a nut-studded nougat parfait served with scattered pistachio and berries and a home-made sesame stick, marked a return to the high standards of the first course. Relations with Agostino and Rosalba were now so good that we were brought a glass each of an Alpine amaro called Quintessencia di Erbe Alpine from Nonino. It was like sipping a mountain forest; we could have carried on to the end of the bottle. We might, though, have been asked to pay for it (the bill was already £131.01), and Alpha Centauri awaited. Or Theydon Bois, anyway.

Wine list scores three out of five.

Percento
26 Ludgate Hill, EC4M 7DR