Ronnie Scott, who, with fellow saxophonist Pete King, opened his eponymous Frith Street jazz club in 1965, had some good bad-taste jokes about food and cooking. It wasn't just the way he told 'em.

"Our chef is half-black and half-Japanese and every 7 December, he attacks Pearl Bailey"; "We have pygmies who come all the way from Africa to dip their arrows in his soup."

Sadly, the inimitable Ronnie is with us no more, and recently the legendary Soho club was bought by theatrical impresario Sally Greene.

Her laudable aim is to keep faith with the music and make the surroundings more comfortable for customers and musicians alike.

With the food, it wouldn't have been difficult to have improved on the horrible spaghetti Bolognese and crap steak and chips that used to be the staple fare at Ronnie's, but that seems to be beyond the capability of the new management.

We planned to eat and listen to jazz after going to the theatre with friends. It turned out that to have dinner you must pay in advance - £23/£30 for two/three courses plus the admission charge for the evening. On arrival, you are handed a plastic token as proof that this arrangement has been made - a naff touch in what was always a cool club.

We were shown to a small table at the front and to the left of the band - that night Howard Alden plus the JP Trio with special guests Nina Ferro, Steve Fishwick and the Gary Baldwin Trio.

We couldn't see to read the menu, but fortunately someone's key ring included a tiny torch. Dominic, the notably charming waiter we eventually managed to flag down, tried to help us read by the light of his electronic ordering pad. But in the end it didn't much matter what was ordered, since it was all of a consistent mediocrity.

Many anomalies and abominations go under the heading of Caesar salad, and the heap of leaves with a couple of unsalted anchovies and a few lumps of cheese was yet another assembly with little or no relationship to that created by Caesar Cardini in a Tijuana restaurant in 1924.

Smoked salmon and asparagus with poached egg and Hollandaise seemed to have been put together a long time before service. Bisto-style shiny gravy was the unifying component of roast chicken with wild mushroom, raisins and tarragon sauce and crispy roast duck breast with parsnip purée, honeyand-lime sauce.

When we enquired about dessert, the response was that the kitchen was closed. As Thelonious Monk sang, it gets bad 'round midnight.

Late supper food: club sandwiches, Southern fried chicken, steak sandwich, a pasta dish, kedgeree and the like would suit the place - which in itself is great - better than a threecourse set-price meal.

Perhaps the answer is to take out membership of Ronnie's Bar, with its self-styled "stylish yet timeless" interior created by Parisian designer Jacques Garcia and its "chic light menu".

A preview period for trying out the bar is trailed on the menu as running from 1 August to 15 September. Although when we asked to see it, we were told it wasn't possible.