Room with a view

If there's anything I love more than a swanky restaurant, it's a swanky restaurant with views. It brings out my over-excited inner tourist. So I had been looking forward to Galvin At Windows since the news hit.

What a combo: the capital's loftiest dining room, the flair of chef Chris Galvin - of the much-trumpeted Galvin Bistro de Luxe, where he's left brother Jeff manning the stoves - partnered with the equally talented Andre Garrett (formerly of Orrery).

I was positively bursting to waft up to the Park Lane Hilton's 28th floor. (Not so keen, though, that I hustled in during the early 50 per cent discount period. We do have standards.)

I came away less excited. Oh, it's a good restaurant, just not the sensory overload I anticipated. The room looks the part - with these views, it would have a hard time not to - but, despite its height, it left me feeling a little flat.

Before, it bore the unmistakable mark of this most tasteless grand hotel - that lobby! Trader Vic's! - all swarthy gentlemen and The Girl From Ipanema.

Now, it's an expensive expanse of clever touches from the design team behind Nobu (plus horrible carpet) - long partitioning curtains made of silken fringe; a raised centre section which means everyone gets the view's full impact; a strange, golden ceiling sculpture that looks like a giant's discarded Quality Street wrapper; the heaviest restaurant chairs I've ever encountered.

They've tried hard but it still gives off a whiff of vanilla, corporate-International-Hotel-Chain. Funny, that. This impression is intensified by the staff: an enthusiastic bunch of glass-fillers and general faffers.

The American restaurant fans I know love this - all that 'are you enjoying your meal?' shtick really gets them going. The moneyed tourist (both foreign and indigenous) would seem to be the logical target audience here. But if so, why are portions so teeny-weeny?

Take a starter of scallops. Sliced wafer-thin, almost tataki-raw and interlaced with similarly anorexic discs of waxy new potato and a sauce that hinted at real truffle, these would have reconstructed into little more than a brace of bivalves.

Or my langoustines: £14 bought three small, shelled crustaceans, a dice of (gorgeous, melting, but un-cracklinged) pork belly the size of a dishwasher tablet and a dessertspoonful of cauliflower puree. Don't get me wrong, both dishes were ravishing; it's just that any selfrespecting American might have mistaken them for amuse-bouches.