Babylon comes to Camden

So much for the Babylonian epic. Gilgamesh is a corking new restaurant and bar in Camden Stables, wildly over-decorated in the Assyrian style. There are immense carved wooden and gilded murals everywhere - even chairs, all made in India, with arms for arms, hooves for feet and a fine lion noshing on a naked lady on the back.

A giant version of the wonderful little Sumerian figure of a ram in a thicket from the British Museum stands proud - and the reliefs continue into the loos. It's like an Indian restaurant gone mad. Or a Cargo shop in full-blown psychosis.

The building itself would be impressive even without the decor. The sheer size, some 1,500 sq ft, is palatial. It's a great glass slice, designed by the Stables Market team in the style of Norman Foster.

The main dining room is canopied by a moveable internal awning, and looks out over a buddleiainfested and quite noisy freighttrain line, strangely evocative. Then there's a gigantic bar inlaid with lapis lazuli, a lounge and a tearoom, too, and an open kitchen, as well as this vast hall. There's a fine sense of light, space and air here, as well as of barmy luxury.

From a central console, between two great Babylonian figures of human-headed winged lions, sometimes there's to be a DJ, playing music with vaguely Arabic influences, sometimes a band. The whole vast room constantly changes colour with a light show. The waiters have been ruthlessly selected for their looks, too. It is an absolutely spectacular place, on a scale new to London.

For Gilgamesh can take 500 people at a time. On a freebie launch night last week, when it was packed with happy liggers, there was a great, cruisy buzz. Whether it can generate enough custom for real to work so well each night remains to be seen. The proprietors want it to seem exclusive, despite being the size of a bus-station - a hard act to pull off.

The head-setted doormen, guarding a stretch of red carpet between naff flambeaux, have obviously been told to look dubious about the chance of an unreserved table, even when the place is three-quarters empty.

As a bar, it's nevertheless surely a goer already. The "pan-Asian" food hardly needs to be more than satisfactory. But it is much better than that. Ian Pengelley, who made his name at Notting Hill's E&O, and who took a wrong turn in opening Pengelley's for Gordon Ramsay Holdings, is in charge.

At the launch evening, we were treated to the works. There was fantastic salmon, tuna and yellowtail sashimi and sushi, incredibly fresh and attractively presented. Coconut-based creamy Dtom kha soup (£5) was rich and delicious. Chilli salt squid (£7), a signature Pengelley dish at E&O, is tiny pieces of fried squid served in a paper cone, astonishingly salty and peppery, a real roustabout for the tastebuds. Think of it as highly flavoured salt - an incentive to drink, perhaps.

The dim sum, clean and nice enough, were less remarkable: steamed prawn dumpling, chicken gyoza, duck spring roll etc. But then they were dim sum.

The main "Gilgamesh dishes" were quite delicious: muskily delectable Miso Chilean seabass roasted in hoba leaf; excellent beef fillet with sweet soy glaze and Japanese chive mash. But then again, on a summer evening, all you'd need would be the duck and watermelon salad, with cashew nuts and a sweet fish sauce (£11), tasty and refreshing.

We went back as paying customers this week, concentrating on the short menu of sushi and sashimi, dramatically presented atop a leafy bowl of dry ice, bubbling and fuming away. This time, they were good without seeming much better than can be enjoyed cheaply in conveyor-belt places like Kulu Kulu - unnecessarily decorated, California-style, with differently coloured fish eggs and dabs of flavoured mayonnaise too. Three pieces of salmon nigiri were £3, three pieces of tuna sashimi £5.

The desserts were just lovely. The lavish Exotic Fruit Plate (£7) would be all two people would need. But then the Warm Passion Fruit Pudding (£6) is the nicest rice pudding I've ever met, hazelnut dacquoise (crunchy biccy) and yuzu (Japanese citrus fruit) just as good.

The drinking is good, too, running to a specialist sake sommelier. The house wines start at £12 a bottle, £3 a glass - a nice Verdicchio was £16.50, there are some serious white burgundies from the likes of Vincent Girardin at the top end. A Shamash cocktail, gin, lavender, lychee and champagne, is well worth £8.50.

You could come here and hold back on the food. Our bill, for sushi, wine, Norwegian water and puddings for two, came to £77.06, a figure almost never attainable at Wagamama. The average spend is calculated to be £45 in the evening, a sum Pengelley tactlessly told the Standard last week was "just enough to keep out the people with six earrings or more and tall spiky haircuts".

The proprietors (also flogging Gilgamesh booklets and CDs) have certainly not been afflicted with false modesty. "Gilgamesh really is somewhere fit for the gods," they claim, "reviving the ancient Babylonian legacy in a contemporary setting." But maybe this time Babylon has gone too far? It'll be interesting to see.

Gilgamesh
Chalk Farm Road, London, NW1 8AH