Society café rather than café society

If the term 'café' conjures up images of fag smoke and fried slice you're better off readjusting briskly and re-pigeon-holing this place simply as Boxwood.

When it opened, this part of Gordon Ramsay's stable of hotel eateries was billed as offering simple seasonal dishes in an informal setting.

Sure. This is a café in the same way that the Café Royal on Regent Street, or the Union Square Café in New York, is a café.

The dining room is stylish and comfortable.

The tables are well spaced, the chairs are comfortable, the service swarms over you.

The standard of cooking is high.

Dishes are well presented, and while the prices may not be café prices they are not wildly 'Knightsbridge'.

The menu is seasonal and changes to suit what is on the market.

There may be white onion soup with Parma ham, roast potatoes and chives.

Or there may be pickled Arctic herrings with new potato salad, or seared beef carpaccio with caviar crème fraÎche.

Mains are also good.

Roast cod fillet with mustard crust and piperade; Black Angus grilled rib-eye with Café de Paris butter; or an accurately cooked piece of roast suckling pig with a grain mustard sauce.

And what dish would be more at home in a café than a burger? Here it's a foie gras and veal burger, with port wine onions, cos lettuce, Parmesan and chips.

The wine list has some accessibly priced bottles.

For dessert, the poppy seed Knickerbocker Glory with roasted apricots and panna cotta is notable, as are the warm sugared doughnuts with espresso sorbet.

You do get doughnuts in cafés, but not like these.

Boxwood Cafe
Wilton Place, London, SW1X 7RL