Simply perfect

Arrigo Cipriani, son of Giuseppe, the founder of Harry's Bar on the Calle Vallaresso in Venice, and his son, also Giuseppe, were in Davies Street last week to launch Cipriani London and greet the customers, who filled it seamlessly from day one, as friends.

It is true that the devotees of old, such as Ernest Hemingway, Orson Welles and Arturo Toscanini, are replaced these days by different colossi such as Harvey Weinstein, Larry Parnes and Flavio Briatore - all sighted in the first week - but the chic and glamour of the setting, the elan of the well-drilled staff and the unique, irresistible allure of the menu minimise such a detail.

I went to lunch at Cipriani London last week and for dinner the following evening and would gladly have gone several times more, so appealing is the menu and so confident and unaffectedly enjoyable is the atmosphere.

Sitting not that far away from the restaurant Gordon Ramsay at Claridge's, it is natural to wonder, would I prefer the convolutions of haute cuisine and the annoyance of overpriced wines or do I want a perfect risotto, a fat, juicy veal chop flavoured with sage but otherwise left to its own splendour on the plate, cream-filled pancakes glazed with sugar melted in flaming Cointreau and a bottle-size carafe of well-chosen wine at £16? Can you guess?

Part of the magic of the menu is its range from club sandwich to turbot ca d'oro with rice pilaff, by way of peerless pasta dishes such as the square-shaped tagliardi lightly dressed with a classic veal ragu. The scant, almost disdainful, attention paid to vegetables as garnish can be remedied by ordering the vivaciously dressed green salad.

To taste calf's liver alla Veneziana as it should be done, have it here. The same goes for risotto Milanese. Cipriani London is open all day from noon to midnight, so there should always be a time when you can get a table.

Old Harry's Bar hands will recognise the white marble-tiled floor, the low-backed chairs, the pale lemon linen on the tables, the squat glasses for Martinis, the tumblers for Bellinis, the bread rolls resembling puff pastry.

Novel is a mural of planes and boats and trains and the wonderfully kitsch porthole to the right of the bar encircling a motion picture of the sea. It's idiosyncratic, but so are the Ciprianis. There is no need for the waiters to ask: "Is everything all right?" And another good thing is, they don't.

Cipriani
Davies Street, London, W1K 3DE