Turning Japanese in W1

Sumosan is the third restaurant that I have seen launched on this site since it ceased being a car showroom in the Nineties.

First it was Coast, my favourite of all Oliver Peyton's creations. As my opinion was not shared by the restaurant-visiting public, Peyton then changed it into Mash.

Last summer he sold the site to a Moscow operator who wanted to open a sushi restaurant. It sounded so daft that it was bound to be true and it has, more or less, come to pass.

I say more or less as this is not really a proper Japanese restaurant, more a non-specific oriental one that seems to be have been created to cash in on the success of Nobu.

I visited the place for its opening knees-up. Le tout Londres - well, the bit that comprises Andy Wong, Nicky Haslam, Tim Jefferies, Jasper Conran, Tom Parker Bowles and Ozwald Boateng - turned up. Rather touchingly, they even invited a few restaurant journos including me, and the doyenne's doyenne, Fay Maschler.

The entrance along a dark corridor is enlivened by a glass bridge over a sandpit, which offers plenty of scope for tripping after a few samovars of sake. The main restaurant is scantily protected from the eyes of passers-by with a curtain of what looks like glass chilli peppers.

It was a jolly evening and staff coped well, especially considering it was their first night. The culinary highlight of the evening was a witty piece of beetroot netting that been slung nonchalantly over a dish of prawns in various crusts; it was so good - the beetroot netting, I mean - that I was tempted to take it home and garb my son's Action Man with it. There was some good sushi, including some tasty rolls and some adequate sashimi.

This place has a high opinion of itself inasmuch as it prefixes certain dishes with the name Sumosan, say a perfectly nice tuna tartare with avocado and quail's egg or a pyramidal and faintly medicinal-tasting sponge pudding filled with berries, to denote signature-dish status.

Call me old-fashioned, but I thought signature dishes (fishcake at Le Caprice, Black Cod at Nobu) achieved their status over time, their reputation accrued over the years. But I will be back to see how they settle down.