Ever since the restaurateur Luke Johnson accused restaurant critics of being serially corrupt a few years ago, we have taken care to guard our backs. Although Luke has inherited a sweet and temperate nature from his father Paul, he is a powerful man (he doubles up as chairman of Channel 4), so we must not gift him ammunition for a more precisely targeted attack. I must therefore declare that, since glowingly reviewing Amaya elsewhere when it opened, I have been back twice without being given a bill. This is why, returning to mark its receipt of a Michelin star, I invited my boss: if this matter ever lands up in the office of the Guardian's readers' editor, as perhaps it should, I'm taking her down with me.
The good news is, she fell in love with Amaya almost at once, when among four freshly made relishes served with a basket of piping hot breads was a bowl of crushed rose petals. The only complaint (apart from the room's iciness) was that, having checked her envelope, she reported that the manager padded out the £50 notes at the front and back of her wedge with a distasteful number of tenners. (My little joke.)
Amaya describes itself as "a new kind of Indian restaurant", a common enough claim in so neophiliac an industry, but in this case a justified one. The novel idea is to serve a very classy take on Indian street food - theatrically prepared and cooked in a tandoor or on a charcoal grill at the back of the room - in cool surroundings (the odd ethnic statuette, a pleasingly garish mural of rural scenes, enough dark wood to give a flavour of life inside a humidor). It may sound a little confused, but it works brilliantly, largely because the food is spectacular.
The one problem with restaurants of this calibre is they turn you into a proselytising maniac. You want to bore your friends to death about them, and see their little faces as they taste food the like of which they've never tasted. "My God, this is amazing," erupted my boss, a vegetarian, on biting into spinach cakes stuffed with figs (£8.75). "I feel a bit emotional. I've got to bring people here."
If none of the veggie dishes that followed quite matched that, they came close. Grilled asparagus (£9) were plump, just the right side of al dente, and glazed with onion chutney. Indian squash was matched with spiced haloumi and stuffed baby peppers with goat's cheese (both £9), and both were terrific, as were griddled sweet potato with yogurt (£8.75) and stir-fried tofu enlivened by red chilli. Spiced grilled aubergine (£4.75 for a small portion), cooked so slowly it was almost caramelised, was nearly as glorious as the spinach cakes.
If some of this hints at inauthenticity (the haloumi, for example: is there a vibrant expat Greek-Cypriot community in Mumbai?), all the cooks under head chef Karunesh Khanna were recruited from Indian street stalls, and their real speciality is meat. So indescribably delicious were my lamb chops (£9.55 for two) with ginger, lime and coriander that only fear of the sack dissuaded me from force-feeding my guv'nor. Nalli barra, an Indian version of osso bucco (£7.50 for three shanks), also cooked in the tandoor and glazed with a chillified masala sauce, was so good that I spent ages sucking out every last vestige of flavour. Big, juicy tiger prawns, grilled on a skillet, were also great, while charcoal-cooked spotted grouper, seasoned with chilli and peanut and served inside pandan leaves, might be one of my Desert Island dishes.
The traditional way to continue such a meal is with a biriani served in a scooped-out paratha, but when observing tradition requires a stomach pump, you have to ignore it. So we finished by sharing two puds, a chocolate and yogurt whip and a "deep red and tangy" fresh pomegranate granita (£7.50 each), both so delectable that the menu's claim for them of 90 and 40 calories respectively seemed hard to believe.
Although there are several decently priced set meals, à la carte is far from cheap even compared with other posh Indians. That, however, is the very last standard by which Amaya should be judged. What you're paying for here is one of the most original and splendid eating experiences in Britain today. If, of course, you are paying at all.
· Rating: 9.5/10 (0.5 off for the chill of the room)
· Telephone: 020-7823 1166. Address: Halkin Arcade, London SW1. Open: Lunch, Mon-Sat, 12.30pm-2.15pm (2.30pm Sat); dinner, all week, 6.30-11.15pm (10.15pm Sun). Price £50-plus a head, with drinks and service. Wheelchair access and disabled WC.
