Quietly confident cooking. We had a lovely - lovely, but no fireworks - meal here last night.

It's in the Grosvenor, a beautiful hotel on a beautiful street in a beautiful city, and I would heartily recommend a weekend break for anyone who doesn't live nearby. It's all dark wood panelling and soft lighting, exemplary but good humoured and warm service, and a borderline hilarious mix of diners from the brightly upholstered Cheshire ladies d'un certain age with their golfing hubbies, and nervous young couples working up to a proposal.

Service starts in the bar, with a wonderful cocktail list (including some great non-alcoholic ones, I had mint and ginger and cucumber and a Fevertree Mediterranean tonic, zingy). Amuses bouches included a Scotch quail's egg with pork scratchings, some sort of truffly gougere, and a wonderful smoked salmon lollipop with a sort of lemon marshmallow.

In the restaurant we then had another amuse of a spoonable duck liver which had a crackable sweet crust, a bit like a creme brulee, with a pistachio wafer and a cherry (cherries were the theme of the night, there must have been a market glut). The starter proper on the tasting menu was a slice of crispy pork belly with a black pudding wafer, brawn jelly and some smoked shallot.

The dinner then continued with a tranche of perfectly cooked Brixham plaice, a langoustine and some wilted and pureed lettuce. My favourite dish was an incredibly soft bit of poussin breast with deep fried squid tentacles, some cannelloni which had (I think) the leg meat in and some more squid, along with its ink, saffron and a pepper smear. On which note, Radley's cooking is wonderfully free of the frills and furbelows - this was the only smear of the night. There were no swooshes, no foams, no technique for the sake of it. Apart from the ubiquitous cherries, and a sometimes gratuitous use of quite bland truffles, it was all very mature and restrained. Quietly confident.

The main was poached beef fillet, more canneloni, this time with oxtail, celery and some rich and spicy lentils. Along with an unadvertised disc of marrow and some tripe (I would have thought diners should have been told about the tripe, as it's not to everyone's liking, and could have been mistaken for one of the 'textures of celery').

Desserts then started - an elegant barrel aged slice of feta with baclava and some pureed Agen prune; a 'daiquiri' of banana, lime, rum and some crunchy peanut sable, and then finally parfait with poached rhubarb, ginger and sugar baked beetroot (the beet worked very well here). This was the only time service stalled a little - we were one of five tables in our part of the restaurant having the tasting menu and although we'd started at different times, we closed together, so they were making all the final desserts at the same time. A little hiatus.

Petits fours were little pastry cases with various custards including a lovely peanut and caramel one. And cherries...The pastry was, in the words of Mr Hollywood, a great bake. Wonderfully thin and crisp. Then finally a cigar case was bought with a selection of four - I had white chocolate with pistachio and milk chocolate with lapsang souchong (sadly barely detectable, but a fine accompaniment to a good espresso nonetheless).

All in all, a very civilised evening, and we would repeat. It's a gently lit meal rather than the dazzle of fireworks. But perfectly lovely for it. I wasn't drinking but the sommelier was charming and knowledgeable, and the flight of wines to accompany the tasting seemed to go down well. An interesting list.

Ibérico – served with decorative pea shoots, the most delicious and perfectly seasoned brawn fritter at atop of a disc of hock jelly and a pea Chantilly with flecks of high quality Spanish Ibérico ham; in terms of out and out flavour, the best dish on the menu.