In 1873 — 20 years before Alfred Gilbert’s statue of Eros graced Piccadilly Circus — what was called The Long Bar or Marble Hall, now Criterion Restaurant, opened. That statue, by the way, so intimately associated with this newspaper, represents not Eros but his brother Anteros. Their mother Aphrodite gave Anteros to lonely Eros as a playmate. Love, she figured, must be requited.

Over recent years love for Criterion Restaurant has waxed and waned. In 2001 Marco Pierre White bought the restaurant from Forte when My Kinda Town, the company that owned Chicago Pizza Pie Factory and Chicago Rib Shack among other brands, was managing it. Marco’s operation got off to a brilliant start — almost as dazzling as the venue’s neo-Byzantine golden mosaic ceiling — but the energy dwindled and the ownership divided.

At the end of last month it was announced that the new owners of Criterion are entrepreneurs from Georgia — the Georgia that was part of the former USSR — led by 21-year-old Irakly Sopromadze. It is apparently the first of a number of planned investments in London.

Vox Restaurant Company or VINS Holdings Ltd — depending on which press release you read — has refurbished and refurnished the Grade II-listed site which is, in many ways, an extraordinary space but one that is tricky to render thrilling to the customer, who can feel a bit of a walk-on part in someone else’s stateless flight of fancy.

“They want it to be The Wolseley, don’t they?” muttered David Hare, one of my companions on a visit last week. “Well, it isn’t.” Give them a chance, I thought. With its location at the epicentre of tourist London, no Chris and Jeremy on hand, formally dressed staff and, as we arrive, a pianist belting out Billy Joel, it may take a while for Criterion to find its natural constituency.

The menu will not help. Introduced by the now commonplace and tiresome guff about sourcing only the most special ingredients — “Our fish is chosen every morning in the small fishing village of Looe in Cornwall and delivered the same day (really?) … We make our own bread and churn our own butter … smoke our own fish and make our own pasta, ricotta, ice cream and sorbet” — it seems to have been composed by a committee anxious to be all things to all men. Why else insert a section entitled Sushi and Sashimi among what might be termed British Revivalist with Added Foie Gras and Caviar?

Head Matthew Foxon has worked for Mark and Sharlyn van der Goot at their reckonable pubs, The Greyhound (no longer trading) in Battersea and The Rosendale in West Dulwich, where the kitchens baked their own bread, churned their own butter etc. Foxon’s South African heritage shows up on the menu in the dish of Kezie Farm ostrich fillet with sweet potato and beef bobotje. The owners’ background is apparent in the first course of Imperial Baeri caviar at £120 for 50g (with traditional accompaniment).

The cover charge of £2 brought an amuse-bouche of peppery white tomato water with a splash of vodka and a stick of celery. Very nice for some but not for the teetotaller in our midst. “Soy & ginger marinated hand-cubed British beef fillet, cucumber, salty quail eggs” was, I thought, perhaps another and more interesting way of saying steak tartare. The ingredients were lined up in two long rows on the plate and came together in a nice play of textures and flavours.

Nicole ordered foie gras torchon (meaning poached in a cloth wrap) with brioche and sultana chutney and judged the foie gras fine and the chutney much too sweet. Gazpacho with tiger prawns had considerably more impact than pea soup with crab cake that was a study in bland. Clam “Manila” — basically linguine alla vongole — was a jumble sale to look at but punchy to taste. Our waiter, despite several times kneeling at our feet, seemed to have understood wild mushroom risotto at £16 rather than the Kashmir saffron risotto with Parmesan ice cream at £8 that was asked for. It was a large plate of rice with mushrooms but not quite risotto. Maybe the kitchen should make its own rice.

The dread word “medley” popped up in what is apparently a signature dish of loin, belly, black pudding and sausage roll all made from Middle White pork. It was impressive in its remorselessly piggy way but needed something to lighten the gathering. Wild turbot with prawns and asparagus was much appreciated.

The hot weather last week could have been to blame for the glass of layered summer jellies having separated into liquid and solid — I wouldn’t have served them — but equally hot weather should have produced cherries for the compote served with passion fruit parfait with a greater depth of flavour and sunniness.

“This is a toupee restaurant,” said David Hare authoritatively as we left, but then added that he might well seek out the Criterion bar in the early evening as a place of refuge in the West End. That would Wolseley it up a bit.