Putting on Eyre's and graces

Seldom do I book into a restaurant incognito; on the whole it strikes me as rather silly. I am after all reviewing restaurants, rather than engaging in high-level espionage.

However, when reserving my table at Eyre Brothers, I did not even have to try to disguise my identity. Having announced myself, given my name, telephone number and all the corroborative information required these days when booking a table in a restaurant, I was addressed as Mr Phillips.

When I turned up at the Eyre Brothers, I realised that I was lucky to have been given a name anywhere in the vague phonetic neighbourhood of 'Foulkes'. The din at Eyre Brothers is really quite something. Mrs 'Phillips' attempted to order steak, and would have been served skate had our excellent waiter not been thorough enough to run through the order again - but I am getting ahead of myself.

There has been some considerable excitement about the opening of Eyre Brothers - they could be credited with the invention of the gastropub ten years ago when they opened the Eagle on Farringdon Road. I am old enough to remember the excitement of this innovation. Then, as now, we were staring down the barrel of a rather nasty recession and the idea of going to a scruffy pub to eat good food rather appealed; besides, it was a backlash against all that poncy cooking of the go-go Eighties.

Maybe it is because of the slew of imitators, some worthy, others not, that the brothers Eyre have decided to open a smart restaurant. I would have advised them to do it slightly differently but then, had they been mad enough to seek my advice, they would have no business being in restaurants.

The problem is that, although the fit out is very good (in a plate-glass, semi-open-plan, dark wood and big bar sort of way) and uses extremely pleasant and presumably expensive wood with a wanton profligacy that is most comforting, I fear that it will also look very dated in a year or two.

At the moment it seems to suit the clientele - men with cropped heads and untucked shirts accompanied by women in jeans, high heels and skimpy tops. But while the men can grow their hair or tuck their shirts in and the women can change their jeans or wear flat shoes without incurring too much cost, a make-over of Eyre Brothers would be an expensive business.

But before they even think of changing the look of the place they should think of getting a new air conditioning system. We moved tables three times in an effort to get out of the icy blast slicing through the room from the vent that stretched along the ceiling.

Cooking at Eyre Brothers, which draws upon the traditions of the Iberian peninsula, is executed with aplomb. Marinated scallop and prawn salad with chickpeas, red pepper, chilli and coriander came in what I felt was a small portion for £9, but was, however, very tasty. I have a theory that if you are going to serve starters in small portions you should (a) use a smallish plate and (b) serve up something neat/sculptural/geometric; neither is adhered to at Eyre Brothers. However, maybe the portion control on the starters was in order to allow one to accommodate much more generously proportioned mains; the fillet steak with sauce b?arnaise and saut?ed potatoes was a huge lump of flesh, gently oozing blood, while the potatoes were rough-hewn discs of root crop.

Grilled yellow-fin tuna was similarly overscaled, a vast plank that appeared to have come from a fish which Hemingway would have been proud to catch. It was accompanied by a roast tomato and anchovy salad, which was for me the highlight of the evening.