Apsleys, Mayfair, London

You have to be careful not to overdo things at Apsleys, chef Nick Bell's new venture at the Lanesborough hotel. The temptation at any decent Italian restaurant is to go native: antipasti, primi, secondi, followed by a dessert. Gluttony seems less sinful when you're breaching the cultural divide. But at Apsleys, anyone attempting four courses plus petit fours would need a suite upstairs in which to recover.

Recommendations include the excellent boar ragu; the squid, stuffed with garlic and its own crushed tentacles; and the swordfish, which came with an unadvertised side order of roast potatoes, and was all the better for it. With the service almost as faultless as the food, there's very little to criticise. Oh yes, that garish mural, which is like being forced to stare endlessly at a kaleidoscope while suffering a grade-five hangover. If you get the table next to it, ask to be moved.