A Fawlty start at Jimmy's

We booked for and arrived at 7.30pm. The assistant manager seemed strange, was inappropriately flirtatious to my partner, and then disappeared. There were only a few other tables occupied but we were weirdly ignored by the remaining waiter, looning around to the painfully loud music. Eventually, I had to go over to ask for a menu.

We were offered "still or sparkling" water. When I asked for tap, this character made a noise and a derisive face. He was curt, offhand and barely spoke English, like a completely charmless Mañuel. "Wine?" he demanded.

Only after 45 minutes did we finally secure a drink (nice claret, Pontet Bar-rail 2004, £19.50). We were presented with a wrap of butter but no bread was offered throughout the meal. Extra cutlery was roughly supplied from nearby tables. The waiter cleared the plates by scraping up the remains together in front of us.

When we tried to ask for the bill, it again involved going on a hunt. When we eventually got it, we found we had been charged for three menus at £27.50 each. When I suggested to the manager, Caroline Judd, that this wasn't right, she didn't seem to see the mistake, though there were only two of us.

The food - credited to Liam Cooper, just 25 - deserved better. Roast breast of quail with bubble and squeak was sophisticated comfort food, though the bird had been simply halved, not taken off the bone, and without a sharp knife, it is difficult to eat, unless you tackle it with your fingers. Pea and mint tartlet with pickled beetroot was a pleasant, warm, soft-textured, bright green little vegetarian tart, topped with some confit red onion and served with nice leaves - though the beetroot dice were hard and unrewarding.

Mutton and lamb shank pie was good: crusty pastry atop a mellow stew in which the two cuts had mingled happily. Macaroni cheese with truffle and egg was almost excellent - the bland pasta heavily infused with musky black truffle, with a nice slice of the fungus for decoration.

But, on this evening at any rate, it was served tepid and was disconcertingly liquid, soon turning, with the poached egg, into a sloppy soup. A side dish of green beans came heavily buttered, as they so often do. Who wants that?

Mrs Kirkham's Lancashire and Colton Basset stilton were both tiptop cheeses, albeit peculiarly accompanied by a pot of tart cranberry sauce. A sorbet of banana and passionfruit was well made but suggested there are good reasons why banana is not often a sorbet ingredient.

I rang Caroline Judd the next day to seek an explanation and she admitted that "last night was not how we run our restaurant". The assistant manager had been "drunk on shift" and sacked. The remaining waiter was "thrown in on a level he couldn't deal with".

Still, both she and the owners had come in to try to rescue the evening and matters had not improved: we had been charged the full price, including 12.5 per cent service, for no service.

Liam Cooper's new British menu is intriguing. Jimmy's would be worth trying again. It may yet develop into a Sloaney favourite. But our night on the other end of Fawlty Towers-type ineptitude just wasn't funny.

Jimmy's
Jimmy's
386 King's Road
SW3 5UZ