Telephone: 020-7935 6175
Address: 109 Marylebone High Street, London W1

For several ghastly moments I thought that I was going to have to eat alone. I even got so far as ordering, and then Mallow glided up to my table, looking as near flustered as she ever does. It turned out that she had been waiting below, while I had been waiting above. We both concluded that, had the staff been on high alert, they would have told her that there was another dining room above, but we were inclined to forgiveness - she because she is gracious, and me because I knew that The Providores is still more or less running in.

The name is kind of posey, and a bit earnest, but I rather like it. On the ground floor is the Tapa Room, small, cheerful and elegant. There is no booking and you can breakfast or snack to your heart's content. Upstairs is the dining room proper. Both are served by the same kitchen and the talents of Peter Gordon and Anna Hansen. Mr Gordon was the moving spirit in the kitchen of the Sugar Club, which persuaded us that there was something to fusion cooking (for want of a better term) other than the depressing bodge that it tended to be in the hands of less talented practitioners. We all recognised that he was talented beyond the normal, and he still is, if lunch was anything to go by.

I would say that The Providores has some way to go before seriously hitting its stride. At least two of the dishes fell short of what I have come to expect from Mr Gordon. On the other hand, the first course was everything I expected, ie, an inspired combination of multiple elements (quail, cinnamon, carrot, wattleseed, pomegranate and ginger) and several cooking techniques - grilling (of quail) and roasting (of carrots) - kept in lucid balance and focus to produce a humdinger of dish.

I get the impression that God does not intend me to be a vegetarian. Every time I set out to follow the higher calling, I get sandbagged by the results. The menu said miso and sake baked aubergine on taro rosti, edamame and spinach with truffle and lime dressing - and I am not inclined to question the list of ingredients. They make pretty sexy reading and they were all there. It's just that I am not sure that they were better for being so. The result was an exercise in squidge, a technical term I don't employ much: squidgy rosti, squidgy aubergine, squidgy dressing. It wasn't horrid, it was just squidgy, without definition and charm.

Mallow, too, came across minor blemishes in a dish of Teruel ham with black figs and olives. It would have been a classy combination, with the olives making a rather different point to the classic fig 'n' ham duet. The ham was fine - very fine, in fact, but the fig was straight from the chiller cabinet. A simple dish depends on the perfect condition of its ingredients to work, and if they aren't then it doesn't.

However, the salad of poached guinea fowl, broad beans and lemon roast fennel with fried manouri ewes' milk cheese, to give it the full credits, emphatically did. It was an interesting version of a salad, being more of a stew. Again, while the menu entry may read like the shopping list for a well-stocked deli, a literary technique peculiar to cooking of this kind, the way in which the ingredients were brought to balance was masterly, satisfying as both a sensation and stomach-filler.

Alas, I cannot report on the puddings. The world, and its parking meters, called. Even so, I managed to part company with £72.60. Perhaps it would have been wiser to have drunk by the cheaper bottle than be tempted into a better class of New Zealand Pinot Noir by the glass, and end up with a bill for £26 for four glasses as a result. But, whatever the shortcomings on this particular visit, you just know that The Providores has serious class. It's just a matter of time before it shows it.

· Open: Restaurant, Mon-Sat, 12 noon - 2.45pm and 6 - 10.45pm. Tapa Room, Mon-Fri 9am-10.30, Sat/Sun 4-10.30pm. All major credit cards. Wheelchair access and WC.