Something's got to give

Miss Vicky Butterfly is lush. She has the extraordinary curves, the bee-waist and ripe thighs of a Regency poule de luxe crossed with a Bettie Page vixen's face. She is dressed in a hooped crinoline corset and curiously erotic, Germolene-pink large, silky bloomers. All of us at the table, irrespective of gender, have developed minor crushes and we watch mesmerised as the butterflies that cover her pearly bosom flutter off on to the floor.

Meanwhile, the grain mustard ice cream on my chunk of beef (it says pavé, but it's more like a tube) has melted into a tepid pool. The waitress clearly doesn't want to break the magic of Miss Vicky's act by anything as mundane as the delivery of our dinner - I'm only relieved we didn't decide to go for the six-course tasting menu. But we don't mind too much because it's fair to say we're having a marvellous time.

What a curious joint this is. At first, it reminds me a bit of Bistrotheque: the pared-down warehouse building; the branché East End location; the artsiness of the whole operation. But where Bistrotheque has opted for a menu of well-executed but simple bistro classics, here they've pulled out all the stops. Not always wisely.

Check this baby out for a statement of intent: pan-fried smoked foie gras salad with chocolate vinaigrette and crouton. You've got luxury, classicism, innovation and nearlunacy all on one plate. The expensive liver tastes exactly like those smoked almonds you get in tins; I love the blunderbuss effect of these with a frosty Martini but it seems a perverse thing to do to an ingredient noted for its rich subtlety.

Or tuna, served tataki-style (seared outside) in perfectly symmetrical discs. It comes with a cuckoo-spit of wasabi foam and little batons of acidic marinated cucumber, a successful combination of tastes and textures.

But the quality of the fish is deadened by a fridge's lengthy, chilly embrace.

Oops, and here's the cabaret, shedding clothing and props and making delicious little moues. She engages us in flirtatious eye-contact, possibly because we appear to be the only people in the room - we're on the boothed, mezzanine level above the downstairs bar - although raucous guffaws are coming from somewhere or other. We find out later that there's a party of blokes languishing on the top floor beds. Yes, beds; not as in chaise longues or daybeds or low-padded ottomans, but beds as in Argos.

That 'pavé' has clearly suffered from its hiatus under the pass: it's a little sinewy and its red wine jus is stickily over-reduced and metallic, tasting of catering demi-glace.

The now liquid ice cream provides an odd, cold sauce. Duck breast with figs has a medicinal tang, as though the fruit has been boosted with Syrup Of Figs; good meat and fabulous, fat, fluffy pont-neuf chips, though.

A little phial of lemon sherbet arrives with my lovely lemon and mascarpone frozen parfait. What larks. And warm Eccles cakes - little pastries the size of cheese footballs - come with Stilton ice cream, an amusing and successful double act.

I love The Brickhouse's dinner-as-entertainment ethos, but I reckon it would work a whole lot better if the dinner in question was less elaborate. With cabaret, you don't want to have to concentrate too hard on what's on the plate in an attempt to deconstruct the contents of home-made salad cream or to muse on whether cinnamon sabayon is really the wisest accompaniment for herb gnocchi in pumpkin soup.

Also, prices might disenfranchise a huge potential target audience.

I wandered next door to the exhibition at the Boiler House where, among other things, I was compelled to play conkers with an enthusiastic bearded fellow. The event was heaving with just the sort of chaps who would thoroughly enjoy Brickhouse but baulk at paying sixty quid a skull.

It's clear from what we ate that chef Matthew Reuther is an ambitious type (his CV includes stints as sous and senior sous at the likes of Foliage and 1 Lombard Street) and he may not want to traduce principles as lofty as the imposing glass-lined room he's chosen to launch himself in. Which would be a pity because talent - and he has that - doesn't always need fireworks to announce itself.