Blubird Dining Room

The Bluebird Dining Room is Tom Conran’s reinvention of part of his father’s empire. Design wise it’s a winner, a great room that reeks of leisurely lunches, business deals, grand passions and, presumably, combinations of the above.

Service is of the unflappable, bordering on telepathic, variety: you won’t open a door all evening. All this, plus fine crusty bread, means one of the best first impressions in London.

And then it all goes wrong. The British menu makes great reading and the amount of traceability - Innes Farm goats cheese, Denham Estate Hampshire Mutton, Loch Bevan lobster etc – suggests Burkes Peerage might have written it. Judging by the results, Burkes could have cooked it too.

Warm salad of smoked bacon, snails, duck hearts, watercress and parsnip crisps should have exploded in clusters of earthy flavours. It didn’t but was more successful than Warm potato drop scones, Cornish crab (£10.50). When a potato scone has more flavoured than crab, there’s a problem.

Roast Cornish pollack, sprouting broccoli, Morecambe Bay cockles, shellfish liquor (£17.50) smelled of the sea but lacked power, ditto peppered Cairngorn venison cutlets, creamed cauliflower, bitter chocolate. The first mouthful hit the spot but the rest provided diminishing returns.

The third course almost salvaged the experience, particularly apple and pear crumble with clotted cream (£7) and very good coffee. But the strength of the finish just makes you rue the wasted opportunity that had gone before.

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