Useful lessons in diplomacy

When Clive Greenhalgh was working front-of-house at Adam and Kate Robinson's Brackenbury more than a decade ago, a customer who had been involved in the creation of Les Ambassadeurs club in the 1950s took him to task over the esoteric quality of the wine list.

The Ambassador, the Exmouth Market restaurant and bar that Greenhalgh has recently opened, is a tribute to that chap who, incidentally, came to see the wisdom of encouraging experimentation by offering small producers' output by the glass.

The look and feel of the restaurant have references to the utilitarian, post-war Fifties but are also a powerful evocation of the painting Nighthawks by the American realist Edward Hopper.

Bare green melamine tables, a long bar lit by suspended milky glass shades, what looks like lino on the floors; it just needed a few uncommunicative souls sitting on the bar stools to complete the picture.

The evening we visited, though, any incipient angst was dissipated by some perfectly jolly people sitting in the dining area and an animated open kitchen presided over by chef Tobias Jilsmark, formerly of La Trompette and The Waterway.

The wine list was also uplifting - a tempting document with much of the content available by glass and carafe. We read the short daily changing menu to the tuneful accompaniment of two 175ml glasses of excellent Grüner Veltliner Sepp Moser at £4.25 each.

Adam Robinson is a bit of an unsung hero of the London restaurant biz. His alumni would impress you. Think Trish Hilferty of The Fox and Jonathan Jones of Anchor & Hope.

I recollect writing in my 1997 London Restaurant Guide - where The Brackenbury won the readers' award - that the place was run like a canny household; smart shopping making the most of a modest budget. That approach lives on at The Ambassador.

In price, first courses that evening rose no further than £8.50 for crab and baby spinach salad, and main courses no more than £17 for poached halibut with spring carrots, hispi cabbage (a sweet-flavoured pointed variety) and Alsace bacon.

The crab and spinach salad in a sort of thin mayonnaise, with some baby tomatoes contributing a few sharp asides, was beautiful. A first-course casserole of squid and pig's cheek was given additional impact by a spoonful of pesto and a nice background mumble from the presence of white haricot beans.

Chicken breast is a phrase usually far removed from any connotations of sexiness. But Haughey Farm chicken breast with morels and wild garlic was a bosom to sink yourself into - tender, yielding, succulent and, in terms of garnish, totally of the moment.

Breast of veal is a cut with a potential rarely realised by chefs. Here it was braised, with sweetness provided not by carrots - a natural partner of veal - but by cubes and also purée of pumpkin. Fried sweetbread of veal was perched on top. We shared purple-sprouting broccoli as a side order and there was plenty for two.