Take me to the river

There is no view. I am walking through a glass-walled room filled with a dense cloud of bright, light whiteness. I can't see a thing. I crash with a thud into the glass wall, then turn and step on somebody's foot. Panic rises. I can hear someone calling out for his mother. It might be me.

At Antony Gormley's Blind Light exhibition at The Hayward, questions are raised about the relationship between bodies, space, matter and Campari. That last question is mine, as I urgently need a drink after my space-time continuum is rent in two.

Within the hour, I am walking into a glass-walled room with a sweeping vista across the Thames to Westminster and a peachy-soft summer night sky. I can see everything. I have a menu at my side, an expertly made drink in front of me and dinner ahead of me. Beat that, Mr Gormley.

Skylon, the brand-new restaurant at the brander, newer Royal Festival Hall, is the first new offering from the busy little D& D London stable, itself a reincarnation of Conran restaurants. The name refers to a spiky, 300ft-vertical art installation designed for the 1951 Festival of Britain, and the huge dining space has been returned, care of Conran & Partners, to the minimalist, almost Scandinavian decor popular in the post-war era.

What was once Gary Rhodes' People's Palace is now divided into a more casual Grill serving burgers, fishcakes and omelettes, a glamorous central bar, and a smoothly cool, carpeted restaurant.

Skylon was always going to be a tough place to be a chef, feeding up to 210 people for lunch and dinner every day, before, during and after one of the Southbank's endless cultural pursuits. So the Pierre Koffman-trained, Finnish-born Helena Puolakka, last seen at Harvey Nichols' Fifth Floor, has her work cut out.

The restaurant proper offers a fixed-price menu of contemporary European food that is pretty and seasonal. House-made cheese sticks are crisp and fresh, but little pots of green-olive mousse and salmon tartare are pale and fridge-cold.

Better is a fresh, bright fricassee of morel mushrooms tossed with baby spring vegetables and chervil, riched up with a frothy morel cream, although the good work is nearly undone by saltiness. By contrast, roast baby squid is a dramatic Mir artwork, the pink squid bodies stuffed with a soft, creamy honey-roast ham and preserved lemon farce, served with slashes of black squid ink and bright red-pepper coulis. It feels a bit like one done earlier.

On the helpful, balanced wine list, I find a no-frills but overly warm Domaine Dureuil Rully 2004 for an unpunishing [pound]31.

A confit of Scottish wild salmon comes with a well-made, spring- green watercress cream and a loose pomme mousseline. Salmon can be as silky as warm sashimi after very slow, low-temperature cooking, but this is firm, pale and milky.

A generous dish of lamb comprises a nub of caramelised lamb shoulder, a pan-fried fillet and a half lamb kidney, all of which have good flavour, accompanied by a cheesy Swiss chard gratin, and a perky griotte marmalade.

The olive-suited staff do their best, but few here are confident enough to be relaxed about it. One keeps moving my wine glass by a centimetre; I keep moving it back.

Puolakka has talent, and brings a pleasantly Scandinavian touch to her otherwise classic modern cooking, but there are delays between courses and a lack of spontaneity in the food that suggests a logistician is needed as much as a chef. The trick to a place like this is to know what you can do beforehand and what you can't.

But for once I don't care about the food. It's enough to be in a room like this, with a view like this, on a summery night like this. I wish Skylon had been designed to be more of a palace for the people, but London will nevertheless benefit from having this large and beautiful space on the riverbank restored to them.

13/20

SCORES

1-9 STAY HOME AND COOK 10-11 NEEDS HELP 12 OK 13 PLEASANT ENOUGH 14 GOOD 15 VERY GOOD 16 CAPABLE OF GREATNESS 17 SPECIAL, CAN'T WAIT TO GO BACK 18 HIGHLY HONOURABLE 19 UNIQUE AND MEMORABLE 20 AS GOOD AS IT GETS

Skylon Restaurant

Southbank Centre, Belvedere Road, London SE1, tel: 020 7654 7800

Lunch and dinner daily. Two courses [pound]29.50 per person; three courses [pound]34.50 per person

Second helpings

More Thameside dining

Waterside Inn

Ferry Road, Bray, Berkshire tel: 01628 620 691

It's hard to say which is more impressive: the fairy-tale riverside setting, or the elegant French cooking, courtesy of the great Michel Roux and his son Alain.

Beetle & Wedge Boathouse

Ferry Lane, Moulsford, Oxfordshire tel: 01491 651 381

Set in a beamed boathouse on a stretch of river immortalised in 'The Wind in the Willows', the Beetle & Wedge's dishes include cod's roe pate and crispy duck salad.

Royal China

30 Westferry Circus, Canary Riverside, London E14, tel: 020 7719 0888

Try siu mai and prawn har gau dumplings on a terrace with stunning views, at the Canary Wharf outpost of the UK's most consistent Chinese restaurant chain.

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