The lighthouse fantastic

Restaurateurs are as subject to the vagaries of builders as the rest of us. So by now I had hoped to bring you news of Big Sweary Gordon's new Narrow Street gastropub; Suka, the new Jeffrey Chodorow project with New York hotshot Zak Pelaccio at the Sanderson Hotel; and an outpost of a South African favourite, Haiku, in Burlington Street.

Alas, the proposed opening dates have come and gone, leaving me with a little hiatus and the pleasure of imagining the bullring-like entertainment of BSG's plumber having to tell him that his pipes ain't happening.

But it's brilliant, really, because I get to tell you about a place that may have fallen off the edge of many a publication's 'new' brief by virtue of having been open for a few months. El Faro ('the lighthouse') is most definitely worth attaching to your restaurant radar.

OK, so it's in the Isle of Dogs. Great if you work in Canary Wharf, a little challenging for the rest of us. But Addison Lee offers cabs with satnav; alternatively, there's the urban roller coaster of the Docklands Light Railway, which plonks you pretty nearby.

See: I'm so keen I'm even offering travel arrangements, because this is the nearest I've got in Britain to a real Spanish restaurant. It makes me blush at having been so carried away by Barrafina. I still rate it but it's a bit like discovering that the Johnny Depp you'd been lusting after was a Soho agency lookey-likey.

Check out the decor: why, it's positively ugly - just like you'd get in Spain! No, really, go to any modern high-end restaurant in Madrid - such as Combarro, with its hideous art, shiny woodwork and suffocating drapes - and you'll feel like you're prematurely middle-aged.

Here, it's acres of dark-stained wood, brick archways and chalky white walls, only punctuated by blink-and-you'llmissem black and white snaps. The furniture is heavy and sombre and the waiters - staff are overwhelmingly male - are tricked out in black.

But if this sounds lacking in brio, it's far from it. The buzz of appreciative diners, the genial whizzing about of the waiters, and the quality of the food all add up to a genuinely fun atmosphere.

The menu, unlike Lola Rojo (overleaf) makes few attempts at the reconstructed: this is solid, traditional stuff. So you get all the things that gave tapas bars a bad name - Spanish omelette, pulpo a la Gallega, albÛndigas, calamares - in their original glory. You won't hear the dulcet tones of the microwave, or have to wade your way through layers of congealed mayo, everything is fresh and as it should be.

The ham - oh, the ham: Cinco Jotas Iberico, fed on acorns and, with Joselito and Maldonado, regarded as Spain's finest - is hand-cut. In fact, the Cinco Jotas brand name is now used in Spanish vernacular to mean something like 'the dog's bollocks', a sentiment with which I can only agree.