Star-struck show-off

Chelsea is remarkably lacking in upscale restaurants considering the kind of loot you need to live there. It's more the habitat of the trad Italian trat, all smarmy service and face-lift friendly menus.

So it must be a massive 'he-llooo' to Tom Aikens, a man well used to pandering to the palates of the wealthy. After being, at 26, the youngest chef ever to win two Michelin stars (at Pied · Terre), and a minor scandal involving an employee (no, not that kind of scandal - more your conventional chef-allegedly-bullies-junior kind of thing), he vanished off the restaurant scene to cook for seriously minted private clients such as Andrew Lloyd Webber.

Now he's back with his name above the door. Helped by legendary interior designer and hotelier Anouska Hempel - a woman to be admired for still sporting a 25-year-old's look despite being about 103 - he's shaken up a scuzzy old pub and turned it into the kind of place you'd find Joan Collins. Since there have already been sightings of that national treasure, looks like it's job done.

It's dead posh: monochrome, luxurious, entirely lacking in levity. From the Irish linen on the tables to the dizzying collection of first-rate breads, you're immediately aware that you're in a shrine to gastronomy. It's no secret that Aikens has Michelin stars in his eyes - and the evidence is everywhere.

Front of house, apart from the agreeable and knowledgeable sommelier, could be slicker. I haven't quite forgiven Aikens's wife Laura for sidestepping a perfectly reasonable question - is the tasting menu or the a la carte better value? - with a weaselly 'couldn't possibly say'. (I'd advise a la carte: you seem to get loads of 'freebie' amuse bouches and not nearly so many bloody puddings.)

We went for the tasting menu and, as you'd expect, it's serious stuff. Our only amuse, a little urn of celeriac and horseradish soup studded with smoked sausage and cabbage, with the surprise of a layer of foie gras mousse at the bottom, was ambrosial.

Then came a brace of queen scallops. These had almost turned into the Chinese notion of texture food, so little of their flavour emerged from their (delicious) poached grape, Pernod and acidulated fennel treatment.

Guinea fowl next, a boudin (a hangover from Pied · Terre days?). There was too much going on here for my wordcount - remoulades, foie terrines, green beans - but it hung together well. Sea bass came with an awesomely assured raviolo of perfect dill-scented pasta stuffed with langoustine. And avocado and red wine. And dill emulsion. See where Aikens is coming from? This is culinary showing off in a big way.

Next up pigeon, deconstructed into about five different bits - another boudin, splendidly earthy cannelloni of the liver and more - with chestnut veloutè.

Then a lengthy wait. Then the cheeseboard. Then another lengthy wait. Then a pudding, a complicated apple tower involving filo and apple sorbet among other things. Then another pudding, 100 different ways with pineapple. Oh, OK then, it was only three. A multitude of petits fours - tuiles, densely spongy madeleines, chocolates, all served in incongruous Fred Flintstone pots - were several sugar hits too far.