The website of Battery at Canary Wharf promises much. “Combining breath- taking vistas both by day and night, it really is in a class of its own.” When I went last week, I was treated to the sight of two blokes watching the Arsenal game on TV, a woman trying to get a toddler to sleep and a bedroom that comprised just a bed with white linen. Any moment now, I couldn’t help thinking, someone will enter and take their clothes off ...

The place does have the view of central London and the City, west up the river, but only if you sit in the tables in the main window. Otherwise, you’re at the back or as we were, down the side, with a block of smart flats and the Four Seasons Hotel for entertainment.

It was unsettling — us sitting there, in a sleek Philippe Starck-designed building, with a Jonathan Mangham glass, chestnut and leather interior, and being waited on with luxurious European food and wine as, across the way, people (even wealthy ones, who can afford to live or stay at Canary Wharf) were flopping on sofas, eating TV dinners and doing their ironing.

Most restaurants are at the bottom or very top of tall buildings. The Battery is on the fourth floor in a residential complex — hence the chance to be a nosy neighbour.

But even from the front, the scene is not so bewitching. London is a great city, blessed with beautiful, iconic monuments — but unless you’re on Waterloo Bridge, the skyline at night is not jaw-dropping. Move even a short distance from the centre and the buildings appear small and spread out. Manhattan from Brooklyn they are not.

That’s not what Battery would like us to think. Even its name, the same as Manhattan’s southern tip, is a nod in that more impressive direction.
Like New York’s financial district, Canary Wharf is empty at night. As soon as they’ve completed their last trade or finished their final meeting of the day, its workers are off.

They may stay for a few drinks in one of the bars, otherwise they’re away. This is what Ubon found when it had this site before Battery. If the new owners are going to succeed where their predecessors failed and cater for more than parties of bankers on post-deal celebratory outings (a much rarer phenomenon these days), they are going to have to try very hard.

And lower their prices. We had dinner, just the two of us. The bill was £217.97. Now, we did have a bottle of delicious Cissac 2004 at £44.50 but it was the third cheapest on the list.

My gin and tonic was £9 — a stonking £8 for the gin and £1, it said on the receipt, for a dash of tonic. Water was £6 and we weren’t offered tap.
It’s clearly aiming at the very peak of the market. The chef is Minesh Patel, who trained under Marco and at Gordon Ramsay’s restaurants.

There’s the amuse-bouche of white onion with Asian spices, the choice of different breads and the section of the menu devoted to “tempting tasting dishes”. There were starters as well but also these smaller plates, so we shared Iberico ham from acorn-fed pigs (£7), scrambled eggs and black truffles (£12) and slow cooked, black-faced lamb cannelloni (£5.50).

All of which tasted fine but somehow fell short — like the judges on Masterchef we had a couple of skimpy mouthfuls of each before it was time to move on.

For mains, we bypassed the fish and chose something more filling: Aberdeen Angus sirloin steak, pickled beetroot and fat chips in dripping (£30) and Reg Johnson’s Goosnargh duck with caramelised foie gras, creamed sprouts, artichokes and ceps (£26).

They were perfect, if unexciting. For that sort of money, surely, you ought to be getting something memorable and flavour-popping. The emphasis on sourced ingredients is, of course, commendable but is now so common as to be taken for granted.

So the products of Johnson, a farmer in Lancashire’s Ribble Valley, for instance, are championed everywhere — on the menus of northern celebrity chefs Paul Heathcote and Nigel Haworth, among others.

Puddings were good. The chocolate fondant with aroma of orange and salt milk ice cream (£10) and the warm Agen prune and apple tart, Amaretto cream and Earl Grey tea jellies (also £10) displayed real flair. The salt milk contrasted perfectly with the chocolate and the large tart was meltingly wholesome.

When we left, the two guys had given up on the football, although the infant was still playing up. Outside, Canary Wharf was even quieter than when we arrived. Battery is above the Virgin gym and pool, which looked blue and warm, and inviting. Three people were doing lengths while one chap was sitting on a sun-lounger in his swimming costume, making a call on his mobile phone.

They, presumably, lived in the apartments or were staying at the hotel. We, on the other hand, had to trudge into the Docklands darkness.

Would I open such a venture? It’s brave in a boom. Ubon was destination Japanese, a trendy East End alternative to its Nobu parent in a period when the nearby Canary Wharf towers were buzzing. And that didn’t work out. In these uncertain markets, it seems to be positively foolhardy.