Music Box Loos

YESTERDAY MY father and I went to the former members bar of Sketch, Mayfair, which is now a lunchtime brasserie known as Glade. It joins an already vibrant portfolio of eateries and event spaces under one roof.

To say the site is odd is to simplify its complexity and to perhaps ostracise the fact that its customer-facing goal is to give sheer pleasure. This attitude was evident right from the fino aperitif served by a young lady employed for attributes other than her knowledge of drinks and placed down on napkins inscribed with scrawled telephone number (alas, Sketch's), to the music box loos serviced by a lady in exaggerated French maid's costume.

Unintimidating unconventionality makes this building hum.

I had the pork belly terrine (succulent) served with a smoked tomato sorbet (icily titillating), followed by roasted then slow-cooked cuttlefish (think big squid; incidentally cuttlefish are said to have similar eyes to humans) with pomme allumette chips (the size of matches).

Smoked Idiazabal - a hard ewe's cheese originally infused by the aromatic smoke of shepherd's fires in chimneyless hovels - was placed alongside a small club sandwich of melted mozarella, sprinkled with peppery rocket leaves.

Throughout the maitre d' asked "are we happy". We were, and so too it seemed were the staff, gently padding the malacite-coloured BR print carpet in regulation plimsols.

A slightly chubby Sardenian Vermentino helped wax lyrical the food.