Beach Blanket Babylon

Sometimes, of course, we take our desire to project the right image to extremes. While in Los Angeles for a series of meetings, I was slightly bemused to be told that I needed a different outfit for each one if I was to fit in. My Californian mentor took me shopping to ensure that I conformed to the LA look for breakfast, lunch and then afternoon tea. It worked, I got the contract, possibly because I pleased my hosts by respecting their outlook on what a 40-year-old PR should wear. Or not wear. Black for a breakfast meeting in Los Angeles is a definite no-no.

From an aesthetic point of view, I can see exactly why Beach Blanket Babylon is a venue for London Fashion Week parties. Smart and glitzy, it's packed with beautiful staff. But above all, it reminded me of how the restaurants of the future were always portrayed in those iconic TV programmes of the Sixties. Psychedelic patterns on the walls. Soup bowls shaped like flying saucers. And retro lights hanging from the ceiling. Waiters shoe-horned into tight black outfits.

Unfortunately, the faux-future setting didn't extend to the menu, which was firmly anchored in the past with a predictable metropolitan muddle of international dishes that recur in mediocre restaurants in every city worldwide: goat's cheese tart; tricolore salad; melon with ham; grilled tuna steak. In fact, it's the kind of menu that would normally make me drink at the bar and leave (and BBB has a very fine bar, with energetic staff shaking innovative cocktails so that was a tempting option). But once we'd begun to relax inside the sparkling interior of the restaurant, the menu began to look more interesting - proving yet how transforming style can be when it's in the right hands.

Guy had pear and endive salad with Stilton (I told you the menu was boring) followed by roast duck breast in orange (stifle that yawn). I had gazpacho and then a chunky burger, done to perfection. (They didn't, however, have any tomato sauce for the chips, and gave me one of those looks when I asked for it.) Accompanied by two glasses of perfectly good Merlot, all were excellent enough to get over the sheer dullness of the choice. We finished with a shared banana split, which was terrific.

The only crisis came with the service. For no reason that we could divine, all the staff disappeared after we had finished our main course, so we sat with empty plates in front of us for well over 15 minutes. We took this in our stride as did our fellow diners who were also abandoned. Maybe there was a party in the kitchen, or a better commercial opportunity nearby? In any event, they eventually returned one at a time, rather less chatty than before they left. This peculiar lapse was a pity, as the staff were otherwise delightful.

Our fellow diners were a brilliantly mixed crowd. A pair of young lovers sipping cocktails, a couple with their parents, a large table of energetic office workers. The place was packed. No sign of economic troubles in EC2, and not a Russian or Qatari in sight.

London Fashion Week has a crystal ball element that gives us a glimpse of what we'll be wearing in the future. If you want to see how the future used to look, and enjoy what we used to eat, then make your way to Beach Blanket Babylon. It's buzzy. The cocktails are amazing. And while it lacks originality, like all the best in fashion it has that one key element. Authenticity.

Beach Blanket Babylon
Bethnal Green Road, London, E1 6LA