The restaurant.

It's all black render on the outside and all concrete and metal on the inside, like a bunker. It has that half-finished look that says a million bucks have been spent on the interior design.

Like every other up-to-the-minute bar or brasserie or whatever they're calling them these days, it has a single-syllable one-word name, all lower case and of no particular meaning, in raised but very small chartreuse lettering set into the black render.

We pushed open the doorway, glass and etched metal, and climbed single-file up a dark narrow stairway to a kind of loft overlooking the rest of the restaurant. We were a party of about twenty and it was the crazy week before Christmas. We sat down.

In between the cutlery, a roneoed sheet listed all the latest grigios and viogniers and some lurid cocktails.

After a while, a waiter emerged from the stairway and set about taking drink orders. After another while, a longer one, he was pouring a splash of sauvignon blanc into the large glass in front of me. Large? He could have poured the entire bottle into it. You get better notes on the nose with a big glass, petals of orchid, mown grass, a spring morning in September. Or maybe they just make you drink more.

The menu didn't have dish titles, just lists of ingredients. Millefeuille of confit raviolo with balsamic jelly shiso and a sardine icecream cappucino of freshly shucked oyster wasabi sorbet. With purple basil. I made that one up. I think. So it was kind of hard to decide what to have. Would puree of spring onion go better with shards of duck with amontillado syrup or with a gnoccho infused with plum wine? And what the hell is a pithivier? You can't ask, because you can't pronounce it.

- This word here, waiter - how do you pronounce it?

- It's pith-iv-i-er, sir.

- Great. What is it?

- It's something in puff pastry, sir.

- Well, why don't you say that?

- I just did, sir.

It would take too long. And that's just one word. There are veloutes, cassoulets, things en papillote, other things truffled that don't sound like they would like to have been truffled, and lots of warm things. I prefer my food either hot or cold but I suppose warm is a nice compromise and reduces split-second timing in the kitchen, especially when the chef is busy making tiny dishes out of a thousand different ingredients, probably using a microscope.

The menu spelled millefeuille millefueille. You should only be allowed to misspell French words if you are actually French. Other people should get them right.

OK, let's stop being picky about the menu and order. I chose the risotto, but the menu took ten words to say it. After what seemed like an hour and a half but was probably only eighty-nine minutes, the waiters emerged triumphantly from the stairway with six plates up each arm. I love how waiters do that and never drop anything. My plate contained a perfectly formed disc of risotto, like a spanish hat without a brim. Two inches in diameter, it arrived on a plate the size of your average truck wheel. I practically had to walk onto the rim just to get at the food. It was nice, and there was a scallop in it.

More later. It was a very long dinner.