The great outdoors

The sun is shining on a scene from a holiday brochure. A sea of garden furniture sits beside the shimmering glitter of water. Parasols shade us from the glare and there is the hot throb of Latino music burbling under the sound of animated chatter.

Sinuous filaments of fragrant smoke tickle the nostrils, a hunger-sharpening aroma of glowing coals and charring fish. Exotically accented waiters snake in and out of the throng, carrying trays of fish and potatoes and wine.

But the scene is jangly with anomalies: the water is the Thames, an unlovely stretch overwhelmed by the tumescent boil of the Millennium Dome; behind us the landscape is dominated by the steely glower of Canary Wharf. And our fellow diners aren't sunkissed sarong wearers but a bunch of overexcited suits.

The Algarve this is most emphatically not. But brothers Tom and Ed Martin, owners of The Gun - the handsome, historic pub on to which A Grelha has grown - are doing their damnedest to bring a flavour of southern Portugal to this unlikely Docklands backwater.

The menu changes daily depending on what's available from nearby Billingsgate - as you would expect, it's big on fish. You choose what takes your fancy - it could be seabass or sole or snapper - to be cooked on the barbecue (the grelha is a Portuguese barbecue grill) and flavoured with little else other than lemon juice, flakes of seasalt and the kiss of the coals. It's a brave idea that doesn't entirely come off.

For one thing, the bar part of the operation is already a little too enthusiastically patronised and, since there's no demarcation between drinkers and diners, you find yourself constantly jostled or deafened by suited beer-chuggers.

I don't know about you, but this kind of thing makes me harbour fantasies of going mental with a crossbow. Then at 9pm everyone vanishes - it's a school night - leaving you lurking like the party's unwelcome final guest.

And for another, the food is not quite cutting it. There's an amateurism, a backyard-barbecue-with-the-boys feel to the whole set-up. Everything is a bit wrong: fluffy, fresh croquettes of salt cod (bacalhau) come with an aioli that is thin and underpowered.

Fat palourde clams in a broth deliciously reeking of wine and garlic have been overboiled into toughness. Also, the metal platter bears a disappointing number of closed bivalves which makes us feel cheated.

Sardines - of course! - have a slightly tired air, an elderly oiliness. A gilthead bream (dorade) is a lovely, perky fish - we're formally introduced before it meets the grill - but needs fiercer heat to save it from flaccidity.