We all know the story of "second album syndrome", whereby a new band that produces an instant classic so often spends the next 12 months off its collective head on drugs and groupies before turning out an absolute shocker, but does this traditional difficulty in delivering on early promise apply to restaurants?

A little over a year ago, chef Anthony Demetre and front of house man Will Smith opened Arbutus to reviews ranging from warm to glittering, and now they've started a second joint called Wild Honey. How they came up with the name I've no idea, but if it's a knowing reference to second album syndrome, I must point out that Wild Honey, released in 1967, was the Beach Boys' 13th studio album.

Regardless of this confusion, these two will be up to the baker's dozen themselves soon enough, if that's their ambition, because they just get better and better. The excellent food at Arbutus was compromised by a sterile, clinical decor and insouciant service, but here we picked up good vibrations, not to mention excitations, the moment we walked through the door.

God only knows (only one more Beach Boy pun, I promise) why they went for the first-class air passenger lounge look at Arbutus, but at Wild Honey they inherited a handsome, atmospheric room - oak panelling, antique floorboards, a huge skylight leavening the butch woodiness - from Marco Pierre White's private dining club Drone's, and sensibly didn't tinker with it other than to install squishy banquettes and put up some pretty pictures.

The service matched the decor. Wouldn't it be nice (last one) if every time you stumbled into a restaurant desperate for change, the manager offered to feed your parking meter for you? "Five minutes of service here has obliterated the memory of two hours of mediocrity at the other place," observed my friend, "and the setting is infinitely better, too."

The food and drink, meanwhile, are every bit as good. The cute trick pioneered at Arbutus, whereby every wine on the list is also available in a 250ml carafe for the same pro rata price as the full bottle, is repeated. And the cooking, by and large, was outstanding.

If we had any quibble, this concerned the organic salmon salad with which my friend began, organic in this context being vastly inferior to wild. The fish was immaculately cooked and enticingly pale, but made little impact on the tastebuds. My smoked eel with beetroot and horseradish cream, on the other hand, was a beautiful looking, perfectly balanced medley of gentle flavours.

If both starters tended towards the delicate, the main courses were pleasingly gutsy. Elwy Valley lamb, voguishly cooked sous-vide style in a bag, was correctly pink and gloriously melty, but carried a proper, lamby punch, and came with crushed minted peas and boulangère potatoes. "That was a real savoury delight," said my friend. My roasted veal chop was also a classic, a colossal serving of rich, herby, velvety meat arriving in its own bespoke dish with girolles and carrots, and accompanied by the creamiest, fluffiest, most decadent mashed potato (infused with the veal juices) you could hope to eat.

One pudding, roast peach with basil ice cream, wasn't good because the peach was a tasteless duffer, but the other, wild honey ice cream with crushed honeycomb, certainly was, and so desperate had I become to find serious fault that I started musing as to whether the decor might be too butch for ladies who lunch. It was at this precise moment that three young women - whose bleached blond hair suggested they might be Californ... but no, I gave my word - swept past smiling broadly.

And no wonder, because this is a sparkling newcomer offering thoroughly delicious food surprisingly cheaply, albeit when I asked whether they'd pull the usual trick of hiking the prices by 35% within 30 seconds of the last critic leaving, the manager contented himself with a coy smile. Perhaps they'll wait for the Michelin star instead. It won't be long coming.

Rating 9/10

Telephone 020-7758 9160.

Address 12 St George Street, London W1.

Open All week, lunch, noon-2.30pm (Sun, 12.30-3.30pm); dinner, 5.30-10.30pm (9.30pm Sun).

Price £35-40 a head for three courses with wine. Three-course set lunch, £15.50.