Social eating House, London: restaurant review

Social network: the tasteful Interior. Photo: Sophia Evans for the observer

58 Poland Street, London W1 (020-7993-3251). Meal for two, wine and service included: ￡120

First things first: Jason Atherton is a very good cook. The labyrinth, he displays a level of invention which was rare in the dull paint by numbers of Gordon Ramsay empire. He has done more this shit raviolo of crab with whom Ramsay tortured classes to eat for a decade. Atherton's first solo adventure in the neighborhood of Mayfair, Pollen Street Social, gathered a devoted fan base and now, a few years later, two others come: a little social called Bistro, which opened in March in front of the mother ship and the House to eat most recent Social in Soho.

Witness the talent: among a list of pots to share just a cod brandade salted silky under a layer of oily parsley puree the bowling-green color, dotted with cutting thick salt and vinegar chips for scooping. It is a glorious thing. This is the kind of thing that you get on your fingers that you dig unselfconsciously, so that leave you oily spots through the menu paper. ￡ 4.50 On also feels a restaurant Act desperately want to be loved. As an opening gambit, it was effective.

A crab salad, lettuce and tomato - a bit slavishly called a CLT - which shows more virtuous cheffy skills: the ability to give our ingredients intensely of themselves, in this case the tomatoes. They were fried and grilled, sliced and dressed, as sweet and fresh as a dawn of spring in a lingerie top.

Meat and greet: neck of Lamb with garlic potatoes. Photo: Sophia Evans for the observer

The room, with its ceilings in wood, bare brick walls and mirrors of brasserie-style, flat scrawled by hand through them, is a comfortable dimly lit to hide. It is, they say, a casual dining place, somewhere to put your elbows on the table and prepare the bottom of armpit dinner.

The problem is twofold. First of all, there's an attention to detail of the kitchen. A fatty raviolo stuffed with a wild boar ragu deserved to be taken home and cherished in a velvet - slippery pulp, intense meat - double box but it came on a mess of tomatoes reduced so far as taste of tinned puree. Announcements concerning "peppered hearts and kidneys", made me order the dish, proved be the first dust dried, then beaten with giblets and put in a black pepper grinder. EH? And what? If you promise me viscera, I hope something gutsy - no sprinkles piddly, tasteless. It was a lie of menu.

Food was great concepts - a slice of hake with a crust spicy Indian alongside roast cauliflower; a piece of the neck of Lamb with potatoes whipped within an inch of their lives and file through to the ricotta alongside lots of garlic and parsley. But these two proteins were over cooked, the fish in a way that could have been caused by the burns hot plate; Braised Lamb neck so soft, it was dry and backbone. I left some. Desserts were mostly whipped things: a take on a brandy Alexander, with crunchy bits of this and that beaten in boozy cream and sugar; a chocolate mousse with a little tidy chocolate filled with salted caramel ice cream eclair. All of these dishes could have shone. for the moment, they are simply trying their way across the elbow.

Island dessert: a chocolate eclair. Photo: Sophia Evans for the observer

The biggest problem is one of mood. They tell you that it is a casual place, but faine daining irritations are too deep in the DNA. I asked a boy who passes if we can order the brandade, while we consider the menu. Terrified, he says that he must find the waiter responsible for our; It doesn't have the power to make orders. So far, both faffy. Order us wine and make the mistake of show polite interest. CUE sommelier to launch in a long speech, refuses to recognize the shaking which indicates our desire for him to go away. Each dish comes with a long and detailed list of what is on the plate. And it continues. This is the version of a stretched of the laid back person.

All this is fatal? Absolutely not. But the House eating Social needs more than a little tuning to become the bright window, it could be for the power of a great Cook.

Jay an e-mail to jay.rayner@observer.co.uk. Follow Jay on Twitter @jayrayner1

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