Style over content

Say what you like about Sir Terence Conran (and there are plenty who don't have a good word for him, restaurant-wise), he's a genius when it comes to location. Take Bibendum or the Bluebird, Blueprint Cafè or Pont de la Tour. These are all dynamite buildings in desirable spots. And he's done it again with Plateau.

For those of you who haven't been near Canary Wharf recently: I urge you to go. It's like visiting a foreign country - a sanitised Manhattan; a Stepford Hong Kong - eerie and imposing and alien, especially at night. In one of the area's tall, twinkling buildings you'll find Plateau, above a Waitrose and a health club. (We became rather more intimate with these than we'd have wanted: locating the place is a bit like being trapped in a role-playing computer game. Yes! We've made it to level two!)

Some more strategy and problemsolving and we might even end up at our actual destination, half an hour late. It's worth the hassle. So striking is the space that my date felt moved to profess his undying devotion to me for having invited him.

Divided into two - grill and 'fine dining', where we ate (yeurgh, I always want to say that in a silly Hyacinth Bucket 'fayn dayning' sort of way) - it's a Fritz Lang's Metropolis show-stopper of a restaurant. Surrounded on all sides, including outdoor terraces, by skyscrapers' lights, the design is vintage Conran: slightly unstable 1950s Eero Saarinen tulip chairs, marble-topped tables and those covetable spherical floor lamps. You feel instantly glamorous by association.

So, sigh, it's a disappointment that the food doesn't match up. You've got all the poshnesses you could desire: home-baked breadsticks flecked with nigella seeds; amuses bouches of teeny slivers of swordfish in a tomato coulis with frazzled shallots; an ambitious menu studded with buzzy notes from an ex-Vong head chef; sommeliers and sub-sommeliers and someday-might-make-sommeliers.

I'm not going to drone on about the hit-and-miss service because it was such early days ('Where's our food?' wailed the now less impressed date) but I did find it absurd that the cheese trolley operator needed labels to identify a handful of fromages. 'It's a comtè,' I ventured when one label didn't immediately present itself. 'It is!' he beamed, comically impressed.

Anyway. Dazzlingly jade parsley and clam risotto was dismal: wildly over-salted and puddingy. A teeny portion of acceptable seared foie gras lolled on top of wafer-thin slices of green apple boasting no discernible flavour whatsoever. It was resoundingly upstaged by the sommelier's suggested pairing of a fragrant, heady juranÃon.

We were cheered by a first-class bit of beef: accurately cooked, purply rib with that almost furry quality you get when meat's been thoroughly aged. Thrillingly, potatoes are pommes aligotes, that addictively gloopy, cheesy mash you can buy in tubs from Parisian street markets; less thrillingly, this version was greasy and bland. A beautifully presented lobster in delicious, shellfish stock-rich bisque was virtually raw inside. Tepid, raw lobster is just not nice.

We checked out the Grill menu. Less ambitious than the fayn dayning, it's also - with numbers like suckling pig, Billingsgate fish pie and entrecote bèarnaise - cheaper and more appealing. This looks like the spot to hit, if you must.

The place was mobbed, of course. Which, in a week where we hear news of the imminent demise of the brilliant Sutton Arms, is kind of sad. You could have an excellent, vibrant and imaginative dinner in a perfectly lovely old pub at prices that define reasonable, or an indifferent, expensive meal in see-and-be-seen, style-over-content Plateau and what do you choose? Do we Londoners get what we deserve? Discuss.