A chap walked into 1707, the new wine bar designed by David Collins on the lower round floor of Fortnum & Mason, when I was having lunch there. "No menu. Just give me a slice of game pie and a glass of Pegasus Bay Pinot Noir." I like a man who knows exactly what he wants. Several others like him - united by a healthy ruddiness of complexion - were sitting round the central bar. A light sprinkling of the sort of ladies who used to lunch at Fortnum's, usually in The Fountain, occupied a few of the surrounding tables.

The wine bar is part of a comprehensive refurbishment of the shop (est 1707) which is costing tens of millions of pounds. Now, as well as the fancy teas, biscuits, chocolates and suchlike packaged in a way that visitors to London find so utterly delightful, there is a food hall with fresh ingredients and an impressive butchery.

The truly delightful chef Shaun Hill, fresh from foodie Ludlow, has apparently devised the salad-based menu for the wine bar which draws on the produce available to buy. Those of us who like a tipple are thrilled to see that bottles on the list, culled from an admirable wine department, are offered at a fixed mark up of £10. This gives 1707 the vinous edge over most restaurants other than the BYO variety.

In using the sort of wooden panels for the walls that make up boxes for prestige wines, Collins gives customers the feeling of being themselves chateau-bottled. A white-painted brick ceiling is arched as in a wine cave and wroughtiron light brackets invoke that sort of underground domain where wines quietly, studiously improve. The glass lamps look as if blown by children from tubes of the gummy stuff which can be inflated into wonky balloon shapes with a straw.

Caviar, oysters and London-smoked wild salmon are on offer but we chose smoked eel with brandade and light horseradish cream, a plate of smoked salmon with a p‚té of poached salmon garnished with keta (salmon eggs) and egg mayonnaise made with quail eggs.

The smoked eel was not a patch on the stuff that I ate at New Year supplied by Brown & Forrest who catch their eels in the Somerset levels and the horseradish needed more bite, but since the order was mainly just to accompany a 175ml glass of Puligny Montrachet 1er Cru Clos de la Mouchere, Jean Boillot 2002, the lack of horseradish heat was probably all to the good.

Wanting a taste of New Zealand's Pegasus Bay 2002 myself, I then went on to Stilton and St Marcellin which arrived as Vacherin with biscuits.

What is missing from 1707 and the food hall - where I bought a champion organic chicken and some self-styled Fortnum & Mason bangers with fresh herbs gleaming through the skins - is the charming genteel service of old. Youngsters with bored, blank faces going through the motions aren't quite the ticket.

• Price above estimates a meal with wine and service for one.