Richly deserved praise

So London is the latest playground for the world's super-rich, turning us into a city of butlers and poor relations. Where to rubberneck this most rarefied of breeds? Perhaps scarfing a few lager-tops in the beer garden at the Deptford Arms? Or rooting for bargains at Chrisp Street market?

Of course not. We head straight for Knightsbridge, where a duplex flat just sold for £16million. Where, if you need a pint of milk, your corner shop is Harrods. Or if you'd like a hot date (gratuities at your discretion) with a young lady who looks like a supermodel and talks like a Ukrainian tractor driver, you can call in to... Well, I'll leave you to identify those particular establishments for yourselves.

And, for the ultimate fat-cat's fish supper, there's Breton chef Pascal Proyart's newly relaunched restaurant, One-O-One. For about eight years, it's been something of an insider's secret, possibly due to its lurid, Grimsby chipshop colour scheme. Or its location at the foot of the Sheraton Park Tower, a warty concrete excrescence masquerading as a luxury hotel.

It was never short of custom, however; rich people seem to have their own jungle telegraph telling them where to congregate. But hopefully, the refurb will bring Proyart to the attention of a wider audience; because he is, without doubt, one of the most assured chefs working in the capital today.

To the bar, where a communal, glass-topped sculpture-cum-table is supposed to evoke sandy shores or the inside of an oyster shell. Staff are outrageously attentive. 'You know,' confided my guest, 'if I asked them for something altogether more intimate, I think they'd oblige.' Well, for that sort of thing, you need to go to... oh, see above.

The restaurant itself verges on the attractive, tricked out in the unmistakeable style of corporate international hotel. Cutting edge it's not, but, with its ample, widely spaced tables, padded banquettes and crisp laundry, it's seductively comfortable.

Our fellow diners: what a bunch. The rich are different, oh yes, indeedy. Our nearest neighbours, two swarthy, multichinned, lividly attired chaps - loving that orange cable tank top, my friend - had arranged a selection of mobile phones on their table top with the precision of surgical instruments. One or other was clamped to their ears for the duration of their meal; nothing, it would seem, not even a hundred-quid-a-head dinner, gets in the way of business.

More fool them. Proyart's cooking deserves full attention. It's so good, I've forgiven him for the unbearably twee menu section headings such as Low Tide And Wonderful Discovery, or High Tide With Its Exceptional Sea Fishing. It's now a tasting menu: you're encouraged to order three or more courses so you can 'discover exciting flavours and textures from the sea and earth'. Watch that bill soar.

Dishes are tiny and jewel-like. Three different treatments of oyster - one simply chilled, with shallot vinegar; one with yuzu (Japanese citrus fruit) sorbet and vodka foam; one tempura-ed with, thrillingly, a little pipette of wasabiscented soy which the waiter injected rather pornographically into the flesh of the oyster - had us gibbering with pleasure.

My perfectly crisp, fragrant soft shell crab came with a little nigiri roll of sushi rice, a mound of perfectly pink tuna tartare, tobiko (flying fish caviar), sweet, fiery and frosty wasabi sorbet, and - yay! - another pipette of soy. But here was the first (of only two) duff notes - the rice was poor: claggy and congealed.