The choc of the new

She thought long and hard and wondered if the owners had found exactly nine archaic vessels when excavating the site, a former garage, before building the restaurant with its modern glazed frontage. She then added that in contemporary Canonbury it probably has some quite other significance.

"Hi, guys!" said a chap who turned out to be Alex Costa, one of the owners. "Do you want to have a drink first or do you want to go to it?" Biblical connotations evaporated. We wanted "to go to it". This you do on the ground floor of the restaurant. The bar is in the basement and the first floor is a function space which beckons appealingly when seen from outside.

Alex Costa has north London restaurant connections. His father, Angelo, opened the long-serving Villa Bianca in Hampstead Village. The chef, Taher Djeebet, whom Alex found for Cruse 9, trained and taught at the Swiss hotel school Les Roches. Djeebet has also apparently worked for Marco Pierre White at Mirabelle.

His menu is confidently long and complex with an unusually thoughtful breadth of choice for vegetarians. His Moroccan roots are apparent only if you search for them quite carefully. The cooking style is more accurately summarised by that annoying phrase Modern European, although I doubt that even into that catch-all category has white chocolate and chilli bread been tossed before.

This home-made bread came with butter and pesto and it was surprisingly wonderful spread with either. The sweetness was tactful, the heat of chilli insistent. I ate more than I meant to.

Bread plates are small square white ones with a raised edge made by Pillivuyt, that French porcelain manufacturer much loved by chefs.

Artichoke soup with truffle oil and parsnip crisps came in a shallow rectangular white dish which sort of negated its essential soupiness but the purée was good and mercifully the scent of truffle had only been dabbed on discreetly behind the ears, not on all the pulse points.

Mussels are steamed in Aspall’s Suffolk cider and they arrived seemingly opened that minute with a garnish of a julienne of seaweed. There was no mention in the menu description of spicy chorizo cassoulet with chickpeas of the huge disc of mashed potato at its heart. A basically fine idea was also let down by a banal tomato sauce.

After our first courses were cleared we were given little glasses of lemon sorbet frozen solid. It seemed a strange formality in a room with bare black tables and a coat-stand by the stairs heaped with customers coats. But it could be construed as touching effort, which is how we saw it.

Memories of the Maghreb were discernible in the main course called Lamb Rack. Three cutlets were accompanied by meatballs (kofta), spiced aubergine and mint raita. The meat was pinker than you might get in Morocco but was of a quality that could happily deal with brisk cooking.

Monkfish steaks served with tabbouleh salad and a fruit and nut jam gleamed with freshness and wore their djellabah of accompaniments with grace. Salmon served with asparagus — "Do you think this is from Peru or Israel?" — and a slow-roasted tomato dressing also came in for praise.

Side orders of glazed carrots and stir-fried Chinese leaf with garlic were worth the £2.95 each cost. The carrots had been lovingly sliced into long, slender batons.

Wines suggestions are made for each of the savoury dishes. Pinot Nero del Veneto, Veritiere had more plot and characters than a wine sold at £4.20 for a 175ml glass usually does. I drank it with the lamb although it is quite daringly recommended with red snapper and also with tuna.

Although Banofee cheesecake served on a home-made chocolate biscuit base is not my idea of an ideal way to finish a meal, it went down a treat with she who had ordered it.

When properly made, crème brûlée is such a perfect dessert that "improvements" such as including orange jam seem counterproductive. And cornflour, which appeared to have crept in, is always a bad idea. Brioche and mango bread and butter pudding served with rich cream home-made ice cream is one I’ve saved for next time.

Islington is such a traffic jam of chain restaurants that an individual enterprise into which palpable love and attention is being poured deserves to be welcomed with open arms.

Among the customers last Friday evening there was an agreeable spread of age and type. If they were locals they will be pleased to discover that a Cruse 9 deli selling dishes from the restaurant menu is opening soon next door. "Bye, guys," said Alex as we left.

Cruise 9
Halliford Street, London, N1 3HF