Ramsay's amazing graze

Certainly, if you try to reach it through the Grosvenor Marriott Hotel, of which it is a part, you can get lost in dismal corridors. The restaurant has its own entrance from the street, so that can't be the explanation.

The décor makes some token gestures to the theme of a labyrinth, but it is not that difficult to navigate your way from the entrance to the tables. Having been a guest for dinner at Maze during the soft opening, perhaps the derivation lies in the amazing delectability of the food.

Not everything that Our Gordy touches turns to culinary gold. Pengelley's, in Sloane Street, where Gordon Ramsay Holdings (GRH) has backed chef Ian Pengelley, has had mixed reviews; my own experience was disappointing.

GRH had to close Fleur, in St James's Street, and also Amaryllis, in Glasgow, when they failed to show a profit. But in Jason Atherton, Ramsay has got himself an unusually gifted chef and in the menu style of small dishes quickly produced and (for the moment, anyway) very reasonably priced, he has tapped into, if not exactly the Zeitgeist, a currently appealing, diverting way of dining.

Atherton was one of the early British pilgrims visiting the shrine of El Bulli to work in Ferran Adria's laboratory of a kitchen, and he has also learned with Pierre Koffmann and Nico Ladenis, both recipients of three Michelin stars.

Recently he has been running Ramsay's Dubai restaurant, Verre. His menu at Maze, entitled Spring, lists 30 small dishes priced between £4 and £8.50, plus there is an à la carte of some of the same dishes regular size, also (currently) engagingly inexpensive for food of such sophistication.

Six of us grazing covered a lot of ground. The cleverness of the cooking lay in the wit and wisdom of ingredient combinations, with spices used like accents in a new language.

There has been much talk of "line-cooking" being imposed at Maze, but there was nothing production line about dishes like carpaccio of tuna encased in a skin of marinated daikon (aka mooli) with sesame oil, Oscietra caviar and a flurry of wood sorrel, or Scottish lobster with white radish, English asparagus and fennel shoots and an aigre-doux dressing that was more sweetly doux than sourly aigre.

Marinated beetroot in perfect circles layered with Sairass goat's cheese would convert the most fervent beetroot denier. A surf 'n' turf of roasted turbot with five-spice oxtail, where baby broad beans made a cheeky, unannounced appearance in the star anise-flavoured juices, was novel and delicious, but an even finer fish assembly was wild sea bass with candied aubergine and asparagus with a piquancy deriving from the scent of lemongrass.

The Moroccan spice mixture rasalhanout imbued grilled spring lamb, served with sweetbreads, with the mystery of the soukh. Well-hung beef was served with foie gras and a potato cake studded with snails - not so much Rossini, more REM.

Ingenuity continued in the dessert course. My Australian friend, Rebecca, who had been explaining to me how she harboured deep affection for tinned spaghetti and tinned pineapple rings, was touched and delighted by pineapple carpaccio with ginger lime syrup, coconut sorbet and pink peppercorns, which she seemed to think I had requested especially for her. She admitted that the ruffles of fresh fruit were almost as good as a tinned variety.

A chocolate fondant with cardamom caramel and sea-salt-andalmond ice cream, and passion-fruitand-rhubarb trifle with lemonade granité, were two more excellent sweet things.

Maze is well worth wandering into, not for the look which resembles a souped-up cross-channel ferry, but for what comes from the kitchen at its heart.

Maze Grill
Grosvenor Square, London, W1K 6JP