The love affair which the British have with Italian restaurants trundles on, but, as with so many love affairs, both sides can start to take each other for granted.

A restaurant which opened last week off New Bond Street reminded me afresh of the original attractions, those come-hither qualities that have always ensured plenty of bums on rush-seated ladder-back chairs positioned under dangling spotlights.

At Ristorante Semplice (meaning Simplicity) the peppermill is present and correct but it is small, left on the table, and filled with Sarawak pepper, "the king of spices" from Borneo.

Genial staff are in abundance but they present the dishes from the kitchen with enthusiasm and pride rather than faint contempt. There is a trolley but it hosts Italian cheeses served with jars of home-made preserves.

A little antipasto is brought unbidden but it is not something smeared on bread but slices of buffalo mozzarella cut from cheeses flown in daily from Caserta, near Naples, mixed with ruby-red ripe tomatoes.

Chef is Marco Torri, who was head chef at Teca and has more recently worked at Locanda Locatelli. He is in business with Giovanni Baldino, previously restaurant manager at Locanda Locatelli.

You might say that Giorgio Locatelli is the Romeo of this new-wave Italian. Prices are sufficiently restrained to tempt the customer into a traditional fourcourse meal. Four of us weren't so rash but between us tried first courses as well as pasta and risotto assemblies.

Minestra di sfarrata (pearl barley soup with chick peas, lentils and buckwheat) was, said its recipient, "Scotch broth introduced to olive oil". The tenderness of the Fassone beef from Piedmont, extra tender apparently because it is, as they put it, "from the female", militated against much flavour in the Carpaccio, but the slices were certainly soft, rosy and silky.

Grilled octopus with a salad of carrot, ginger and Sarawak pepper was presented as a large burnished tentacle rising like the prow of a ship from the finely shredded, slightly spicy carrot salad.

Risotto Milanese, a dish that Torri says will always be on the menu, was lavish in the amount of saffron and almost carelessly generous with the little glistening pieces of bone marrow. The texture of the rice was right, too.

I want to go back to try home-made egg sedanini pasta with venison ragout and cavolo nero sauce and also trofie (pasta) with half a lobster and peas for £12.

I reckoned that I'd won the pick of the main courses with roasted and pan-fried Italian free-range rabbit with baby carrots, fresh Italian broad beans and artichoke sauce.

It was rabbit in various guises including a delicately breaded fried patty and a heartbreakingly small rack of ribs. It's early for broad beans but the little emerald commas are one of the most delightful harbingers of spring.

Lemon sole with a Swiss chard sauce was served on delicious potatoes crushed with olive oil. Roast Herdwick lamb with fennel and new potatoes had the intensity of flavour married with fat-basted softness that a shoulder cut can deliver.

It is rare to find such an interesting array of Italian cheeses and the " marmalades" as they call them nicely offset their piquancy. Selections of home-made ice-creams and sorbets served in pretty white china dishes were gone before I could get round to dipping in my spoon.

The Italian wine list has some moderately priced bottles and a dozen served by glass and carafe but then prices leap athletically. Service charge is a modest 10 per cent but Ristorante Semplice is one of those rare restaurants where you would happily add on a bit more.

Glossy panelling and golden swirls in the décor salute the Bond Street location. Plus, there is the odd dangling light.