A diverting West End refuge

Cocoon's pan-Asian menu is designed to be shared, and dishes appear as they become ready, rather than in a predetermined order

The Regent Street site that was the first-floor restaurant L'Odeon has been dark for a long time. The opening of Cocoon owned by the company behind the Eclipse bars and the nightclub Boujis, promised for November, took place last week.

A new design of the long, low-ceilinged, narrow space, winding on until it seats 165 in the dining spaces alone, has taken the restaurant name as inspiration.

Silk nets are used to create little rooms in which low-slung, leather-lined, podlike swivelling white chairs surround the tables. Lights hide behind what might be shells or something more disturbingly sci-fi. Reality is provided by the view down on to traffic and shoppers below.

The pan-Asian menu is designed to be shared and, in Wagamama style, dishes are brought to the table as they become ready rather than in any predetermined order.

Our table looked on to a small sushi bar manned by two solemn Japanese chefs. One of them may have been the sushi chef poached from Miyama whom I was told about by a waiter I last remember seeing at Roka.

The sushi we tried was notably good, inventive and visually alluring. Special mention must go to Dynamite Spider based on crisp soft-shell crab, cucumber and tobiko (flying fish roe).

The dim sum chef apparently hails from Hakkasan. New openings must wreak havoc on the staffing at other restaurants. Seafood dim sum showed some delicate examples but they lacked the ultimate finesse you can find at Hakkasan and Yauatcha.

A nice texture contrast was provided by Seafood Cocoon, cuttlefish and scallops wrapped in Weetabix-like pastry. Soybraised tofu from the section of wok dishes was more virtuous than delicious and the miso soup was uncharacteristically short on salt.

Although prices look at first sight congenial, it is all too easy to run up a big bill while meandering through the long list. Without desserts or alcohol our lunch was about £40 a head. But it is a diverting refuge, a cocoon, in the currently frantic West End.

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