Herve This (pronounced more or less "tease") is the French chemist who in the 1980s was one of the pioneers of molecular gastronomy. His work has greatly influenced chefs such as Pierre Gagnaire and our own dear Heston Blumenthal.

If you have ever experienced cold where you anticipated hot, plunged into a foam only to find all flavour disappearing into thin air or been hit by savoury when you were expecting sweet, you will be pleased to hear that Monsieur This has a new subject of study. It is love. His recent observations on this emotion are in regard not just to its importance in the preparation of food but also in its appreciation. I am with Hervé all the way on this one.

Restaurants often get in the way of love, whether it is through frustrations in booking a table, service from disobliging staff or the discovery that a much-lauded temple of gastronomy is just a cynical exercise in branding. But love fills the air in the rather unlikely circumstances of a brutally decorated ground floor and basement in a small terraced house off Old Marylebone Road.

Dinings - a daft name, I have to admit - is the sushi bar and restaurant of a chef who worked at Nobu. Such lineage is not an unusual claim but proof is in the flapping freshness of fish and the fervent modern sensibility applied to the menu generally.

The prices make you weep with joy. Contrarily named cold and hot tapas range from £3 for edamame beans - hot from the pot - to £11.50 on the evening we were there for the daily special of Wagyu beef tataki. Sushi and sushi rolls, which run to 40 varieties, are also very reasonable in the context of the price of prime fish.

We sat downstairs on hefty wooden chairs at a hefty wooden table looking through wooden slats on an otherwise bare wall at the wiring and meters for the electricity system. Yellowtail sashimi and yuzu (Japanese citrus) was tongue-tingling. We also very much liked coriander and white fish which I think I remember was described as a bomb, and the seductive smoky flavour of freshwater eel.

Blameless silken tofu was made wicked by a spicy seafood sauce. The combination of butter and fierce black pepper is terrific with crab and just as good when tiny whole squid are doused in it, as happens here.

Chilean sea bass, also known as toothfish and currently not an endangered species, wraps itself in sweet miso paste quite as stylishly as does black cod. Three emerald green spears of okra were the accessory.

Pulling apart hot mussels steamed in sake while sipping ice-cold sake poured from a white porcelain carafe is an activity I can thoroughly recommend. The innocent aftertaste of the marinated, fat-frilled Wagyu beef might convince a vegetarian that red meat is acceptable, since cows so obviously chew grass.

We also received a plate of roasted quail which hadn't been ordered. Our charming waitress apologised for bringing it and said we wouldn't be charged. She then apologised profusely for having to mop a spill on the poured concrete floor and then went on apologising generally. I could tell that she loved the place and wanted us to. We did.

Hervé would have approved of the dessert of macha crème brulée coloured pond green by tea - not what is expected of custard and caramel. Surprise can also be a factor in love.