An informal treat from star of the West End

These days you are allowed to reserve a seat/stool. Given the restaurant's buoyant pricing, the no-bookings policy announced at the outset fell flat as a crêpe in London, although it apparently works in Paris.

The woman who answered the phone asked me which company I was with. I was flummoxed. I said I didn't have a company. It made me suppose that a row of suits would be my neighbours and, to some extent, that was the case. But the chap next to me turned out to be very jolly and commendably interested in food. "I wish I had my camera," he said when le tourteau dans une gelée acidulée a l'avocat (crabmeat in citrus jelly with avocado), the first of the tasting dishes I'd chosen, arrived in a glazed white ceramic egg sitting on a beautiful grey stone plate.

I had arranged to meet my friend Caroline who, with myself and a couple of other women, leavened the gathering - if you can conceive of females performing such a function. The beguiling curved counter framed with foodstuffs and the few adjoining tables were not full, which struck me first as odd - L'Atelier, bang in the middle of the West End, has a brand new Michelin star - and then later as a shame; the cooking is so very good.

I share with Adrian Gill a loss of the will to live when a waiter asks me: "Have you eaten with us before?" However, the offer to explain the menus was done with such (Gallic) charm that we dutifully hung on every word of the description of there being two lists, one a conventional à la carte, the other a parade of tasting dishes. How to order was easy enough to infer, in fact a five-year-old could have done it, but it initiated dialogue and that is part of the performance. "Good evening" - it was 1.30pm - said a different waiter and gave us a basket of breads and impeccable butter.

We went the route of three tasting dishes each. All were prepared with utmost finesse, but outstanding were the clams stuffed with garlic and mushrooms arranged to look like the garden of Mary, Mary Quite Contrary; a martini glass holding a barely set oeuf en cocotte and wild mushroom cream - "extraordinarily slithery" - and calf 's sweetbread with fresh bay leaf (poisonously translated here as laurel) and Swiss chard wrapped around stuffing, hiding beneath a foam. This garnish resembled one of those creatures come to light now the ice caps are melting. The tasting menu - priced from £8 to £17 (foie gras is involved) - is a good way of rehearsing an à la carte meal where prices and portions are heftier. I shall definitely go back.

Price above estimates a meal with wine for one.

L'Atelier de Joel Robuchon
13-15 West Street, WC2H 9NQ