Angela Hartnett's new restaurant, under the umbrella of the Gordon Ramsay group, isn’t exactly breaking any new boundaries. However, the cooking is high quality and should please many a Mayfair diner.

The Venue
After parting ways with The Connaught, Angela Hartnett has two new restaurants on the cards for 2008: York and Albany, a casual former pub in Camden that's due to open in September; and Murano, an upscale Mayfair restaurant. Although it's named after an Italian island near Venice, Murano's decor is less old world village and more traditionally upscale London restaurant. The main colours are cream, light green and grey, with touches of gold – very staid and formal. A bit of individuality is expressed in the dangling beaded lights and the two mobile-like chandeliers made of spiky bits of metal and glass. Whilst not minimalist in any sense, nothing here is overly ornate, giving the impression that the food takes centre stage.

The Atmosphere
With a Gordon Ramsay restaurant in Mayfair the clientele is anything but a surprise: expect businessmen waiting for colleagues; wealthy couples who arrive by driver, not a cab (and certainly not the Tube) and ladies who lunch by the spades. The lack of trendiness in the decor means that this is not the kind of place to see and be seen, more instead a spot to have a long, leisurely lunch or dinner. Service is lovely, professional without being cold and friendly without being patronising, even making time to have a good chat with diners waiting for the rest of their party.

The Food
This is the kind of old school fine dining where you order three courses and receive about seven. Amuse bouche is eschewed in favour of a communal style ham board and bread basket, but before that even arrives you receive a bowl of three fried mushroom risotto balls, perfectly cooked and slightly salty with a good crunch to the outside. The aforementioned ham is lovely as well, thin sliced parma with an earthy taste and a rose pink colour. From the bread basket the doughy and flavoursome focaccia with cherry tomatoes is the standout.

The a la carte menu is £55 for three courses - whilst certainly not an everyday affordability, one that's not out of line with other similar restaurants. Although portions aren’t overly large, the dishes are satisfying in size. For those that aren't quite as blessed in the wallet department, however, the set lunch menu changes every two weeks and is only £25 for three courses. A tasting menu of seven courses is available for £70 and there's also an entirely vegetarian menu – unusual for a restaurant under the notoriously pro-meat Ramsay. The dishes aren’t terribly risky or creative, instead relying on old Italian and British favourites.

From Murano’s a la carte menu, a starter of Cromer crab ravioli with baby leeks and celeriac puree is an intensely flavoured dish. The ravioli is a large piece, packed full of crab meat – probably the meat from an entire, good-sized crab. The meat is incredibly savoury, but not too salty, whilst the ravioli is slightly al dente along the edges. Accompanying celeriac mash and baby leeks are pretty much overwhelmed by all the flavour in the crab, but are tasty nonetheless. Gressingham duck breast comes perfectly cooked to order, soft, pink and tender on the inside with a little strip of fat around the edges. Tiny chunks of candied fruits are sprinkled on top, giving the dish a Christmas-y look, but their sweetness goes well with the duck meat. A slice of potato cake comes on the side, with peeling layers of creamy potato interspersed with shavings of duck confit. Like the crab, this is a very intensely flavoured dish and you’ll likely feel too full enough to finish it.

But if you’re full by now, you’ve still got quite a while to go even though dessert’s just around the corner. Sorbet appears, served in two tiered plates, with tiny rainbow scoops on each plate, making them look like artists’ palettes. The top tier includes blood orange, pear and a surprisingly sweet basil, whilst the bottom contains mango, deep red cherry, sweet strawberry, vanilla and chocolate with olives, another interesting pick for sorbet but one that works nonetheless. Desserts on the menu are of the conventional sort - panna cotta, vanilla parfait, an apricot souffle – but the one that breaks the mold is a chocolate and chestnut semifreddo, with a layer each of chestnut and dark chocolate mousse between thin slices of frozen dark chocolate. Very sweet without being too sugary, the light chestnut balances the dark chocolate whilst the chocolate slices mix up the texture a bit. A scoop of popcorn ice cream sits on top, unexpectedly tasting of vanilla with little crisp sprinkles mixed through. Decorating the dish is a couple of buttered toffee popcorn pieces, held onto the plate with gooey dolce de leche. Afterwards, you’re presented with three types of chocolate (milk, dark, and dark balls of raspberry) along with a creamy tiramisu with shaved ice on top and a selection of curly biscuit sticks, and then, finally, the bill.

The Drink
Murano’s 20 page wine list is mainly Italian, with choices by the glass from £4.50. Bottles start in the quite affordable low twenties, but go all the way up to £5,000. A sommelier is on hand (identifiable by the gold pin of a bunch of grapes on his lapel) who’s quite happy to talk in detail about the different types of wine, whilst the rest of the staff are knowledgeable as well.

The Last Word
Murano isn’t doing anything that hasn’t been done before, but sometimes it’s nice to see a restaurant that isn’t full of gimmicks. And even without the host of celebrity chef names behind the restaurant, the food speaks for itself.

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