Top Guns hit mark

When The White Swan opened last year in the City, it was - and is - as slick an example of gastropub (or pub and dining room; or whatever) as you're likely to stagger across. But we gave it only three stars.

If possible, I'd go back and upgrade them because there's been little to match it since in this overploughed field. The Pig's Ear in Chelsea does the business, as does the Anchor And Hope; I loved the Hartley and I'm still devoted to The Drapers Arms. But there are a lot of crimes committed in the gastro name. Now there's The Gun. It's brought to us by the guys behind The White Swan and The Well in Clerkenwell, brothers Tom and Ed Martin, a pair of very smart cookies.

Like other pub rejuvenators, the Martins rip the guts out of old sink boozers, giving them more cosmetic surgery than Jordan. But the results are, unlike poor old Katie Price, deliciously sophisticated and effortlessly easy on the eye. Their latest baby is every bit as lovely as the Swan, with just as ambitious a menu - none of yer bangers and lamb shanks here - but it also boasts a thrilling, hidden riverside location dripping with history (Lord Nelson used to have sneaky trysts with Lady Emma Hamilton in the upstairs room). It also has an astonishing view - even if you never bought into the Millennium Dome as a thing of beauty.

Inside, the old pub trappings have been burnished into sleek, darkly imposing furnishings. The walls are dominated by huge paintings of storm-beset ships; tables are immaculate in linen and sparkling silverware: this looks like the serious restaurant it is.

The regularly-changing menu - think Mod-Brit treatments of native seafood (brought in daily from neighbouring Billingsgate Market), Aberdeen Angus steaks, organic pork - tells the same story.

We ate really well. There were a couple of little hiccups but head chef Scott Wade (ex-Mirabelle and Drones, so we're dealing with the Marco Pierre White school of sound technique and attention to detail) can walk the walk. A new season's truffle omelette was suitably lush, fluffy and luxurious although the fragrance from generous shavings of the musky tuber didn't need to be boosted with the sweaty-sock blast of extra truffle oil. Potted duck, spiced with pepper and a suggestion of aniseed, spread thickly on sage

Ribeye steak was a little on the miserable side but its flavour, its good quality snails and its utterly addictive logs of skin-on chips (cooked in duck or goose fat?) more than made up for size shortcomings. And I loved my 'osso buco' of succulent monkfish (served in a fat collop cut across the bone in an imitation of the famous marrowbone dish) with a sauce rich in veal stock. Its risotto 'milanaise' [sic] was correctly vivid with saffron, though a shade overcooked. I like to play

'guess the damage'; for once, our bill was a whole lot lighter than we anticipated.

You might expect The Gun to be Suit City given its location, and when I arrived I was met by a swathe of pinstripe and worsted. But as the night wore on the place filled up with a clientele that defies category: cool chicks and young dudes mixed with locals - a nicely democratic mix. I can't wait to take the pub's own rickshaw from Canary Wharf, go back for Sunday brunch (Bloody Mary soup, Old Spot bacon and eggs, fish pie with mornay sauce), bag a table by the fire in the snug and settle in until the sun sets over the Dome. Marina O'Loughlin

A three-course meal for two with wine, water and service costs about £75. 27 Coldharbour E14.

Tel: 020 7515 5222. DLR: South Quay

The Gun
27 Cold Harbour, E14 9NS