Rhode to nowhere

One of my favourite dishes in the world - ever - is the mutton pudding from Rhodes 24. I have been a fan of Gary Rhodes's cooking since his first brush with the limelight as guru of The Greenhouse in Mayfair, where he made us re-evaluate our much-maligned national cuisine.

But he earned my undying affection for that pudding, a magnificent construction of slowcooked, expertly sourced meat, a divinely light but densely sexy squidge of suet crust and three different sauces, giving you the ultimate excuse to play with your food. Unmissable.

My fandom was dented by his silliness in the execrable Hell's Kitchen - all that pointless macho posturing - but, you know, if it's good enough for Gordon... And at least he didn't make as much of a prat of himself as Jean-Christophe Novelli, a man permanently hamstrung by an unshakeable belief in his own publicity.

Now, also like Gordon, Gary likes to open restaurants in hotels. But, unlike Gordon, he doesn't seem to be able to keep them open. And whereas Ramsay cleverly hands over a chunk of renown to his chosen chefs - everyone knows who's manning the coalface in his kitchens (not him) - Rhodes's latest venture is less transparent.

Unless you make an effort to unpick the story, this is firmly All About Gary: his move to the West End, his 'innovative breakfast offer', his puddings. However, I'm inclined to suspect we're not that gullible.

We asked our delightful Spanish waitress if Gary was in the kitchen; she dutifully told us 'not right now' but that he came in every morning. Probably rule three on the Rhodes W1 staff training manual.

So, The Cumberland Hotel. I remember it as a vast, faceless pulling parlour. Now it's almost alarmingly slick and contemporary - the result of millions spent by, er, Thistle Hotels. Acres of white space are punctuated by otherworldly sculptures of ordinary people and walls of running water. The space dedicated to Rhodes W1 is vast and as dark, purplish and unattractive as a bruise.

Some of our food was rather good: my smoked haddock starter topped with Welsh rarebit on a bed of finely sliced, excellent-quality tomatoes flecked with chives; some rich and mulchy black pudding served with a vibrant salad of apple and (undetectable) blue cheese. But we got a strong sense of precision and portion control: the haddock looked as though it had been cut using a slide rule.

Not so good: a cottechino (cotechino, as it should be spelt, is a northern Italian sausage, rich in pig's skin) and confit duck salad. The sausage was overcooked to a meaty crisp, losing its trademark silky gelatinousness, while the duck was just flabby. Nice to see the return of floppy English lettuce, though.

And gnocchi - fried after boiling, weirdly, and with the texture of shop-bought dumplings - had so much celery and not-cooked-off white wine in the broth that it obliterated any trace of other flavours (mussels and saffron).