The feelgood factor

There's an argument raging on a foodie Internet site (sadly invite-only) about decadence. I haven't read it because it goes on and on and on and I have a life but also because the concept of a bunch of people (and I include myself) whose obsessions are fine food and wine having an objective overview on what constitutes decadence seems a little twisted.

Spending often inordinate amounts of money on filling your face isn't an activity designed to make you feel fabulous about yourself. Fun, certainly, but not what you'd call altruistic. How marvellous, then, that the Hoxton Apprentice lets you have a full-on restaurant experience and feel absolutely wonderful about it.

This new venture in Hoxton Square is the antithesis of decadence, a non-profit-making venture from a charity outfit called Training For Life, which provides jobs and skills for the long-term unemployed. I am not going to mention Jamie Oliver.

It has called on a hardhitting pool of talent to set it up - notably Prue Leith, that redoubtable dame of catering.

Her input into the menu resulted in a clever wee number featuring accessible - and, more importantly, achievable - dishes crafted from sensitively sourced ingredients. It's not ambitious cooking, nor does it need to be. Ms Leith herself was eating in the restaurant the evening we visited, gracing the room with a table so deliciously middle-class they probably thought they were well and truly braving the badlands. Otherwise, punters are firmly Hoxton: and very cool and decorative they are too.

Refreshingly, the wallet-friendliness of the menu - all dishes can be ordered in small or large portions - encourages a youthful clientele. What we ate was perfectly fine, well worthy of a commercial enterprise.

From the section tersely headed 'cold', we ordered two salady jobs - white beans with chorizo and mint, and a 'Cambodian' salad of crab, prawns, pomegranate and coconut. These were fresh and sparky, the ingredients in the correct ratios, the dressings correct. From 'char-grills', Gloucester Old Spot spare ribs were more like meaty chops, sticky and caramelised from honey, soy and garlic; sirloin steak was good quality meat.

What was billed as 'classic Thai green curry' wasn't really anything of the sort, rather chunks of chicken breast in a thick, Thai-spiced marinade with a clump of jasmine rice: not awesome by any means but not at all bad. A panna cotta was a gorgeous, creamy, wibbly-wobbly specimen, falling just short of perfection owing to a heavy hand with the vanilla. I kept searching for obvious solecisms, thankfully in vain.

But what's fantastic about the Apprentice is that, unless you were in the know, you'd never realise it's a worthy cause. It looks amazing, a laid-back design from Mr Trendy Bar Paul Daly (also responsible for next-door's Zigfrid) in a lovely building. Handsome windows sweep to the floor, furniture is funky and functional, original Victorian glass tiles send interesting jewelled light into the room; there's a little terrace out front where the ironwork sign seems knowingly to reference Victorian workhouses.

The service is no less polished than other restaurants the length of the country, only an unusual level of sweetness and eagerness to please giving any indication that we weren't dealing with the usual off-hand professionals.