Telephone: 020-7493 7070
Address: 23 Conduit Street, London W1
Rating: 17/20

There weren't many women having lunch at Deca that Friday. There were plenty of men in suits, and even some men not in suits, but few women. And those that were there were wearing suits, too, come to think of it - aside from Appleby. Perhaps Deca encourages the wearing of suits. It has the understated good looks of bespoke tailoring - woods blond but not bleached, oak not pine; chairs and banquettes upholstered in mahogany-coloured leather; pinky cream walls; well-starched napery; stately waiters. All of which might lead you to suppose that Deca is a rather senior kind of eatery. Well, it is and it isn't.

It is the latest (and tenth; Deca - geddit?) venture of the team headed by the old maestro, Nico Ladenis. Ladenis once bestrode the London restaurant scene like a colossus, picking up plaudits and stars and fights along the way. A couple of years back, he hung up his toque and white chef's jacket, and retired to the south of France. Very sensible, too.

And maybe a bit too boring for such a protean spirit, because, hardly had he retired than, surrounded by old Ladenis alumni and members of his family, he opened Incognico in Shaftesbury Avenue. This had many of the hallmarks of a classic Ladenis operation - lickety-split professionalism, tasty wine list, classic French food, if somewhat pared down from the glory days, and all at a price that would scarcely have got you a bread roll at a three-star number in the good old days: namely, £12.50 for three courses at lunch.

It's the same deal at Deca - three courses, £12.50. And very nice they looked, too, although neither Appleby nor I had any of them, and, as a consequence, our bill came to £113. Admittedly, our choice of wine, a bottle of muscat pinot gris at £26, had something to do with it, but then so did my lobster salad with daikon and spicy oriental sauce, which, at £19.50, was comfortably the most expensive dish on the menu. Then there was veal sweetbreads Pojarski at £16.50, Appleby's grilled fillets of John Dory with thyme oil (£16.50), which were preceded by an asparagus risotto (£9.50). Add in some spinach, petits pois à la française, chips, a mousse of fromage blanc with raspberry jelly (£6.50), water and espresso, and, hey presto, that's the way the money goes.

Of course, lobster salad never rolls in cheap, and by London standards Deca's version is actually pretty competitively priced. The meat had been cleverly bundled up in wafers of daikon, the fairly tasteless Japanese radish, which looked pretty and meant that you got to enjoy the particular compacted density and sweetness of the crustacean. It came with a similarly pretty dipping sauce that added a layer of flavour without flattening that of the leading player. Handsome is the word that springs to mind.

But it was the sweetbreads Pojarski that made me want to sing. Pojarski was once a regular on menus more years ago than even I remember. You see it in old cookery books, usually describing lamb and veal dishes. It means chopping up the meat involved, coating it in breadcrumbs and frying the result. It's a technique that worked very well with the sweetbreads. They were soft and savoury inside, the outside crisp and crunchy. This is a winning format in every sense, deceptively simple and richly rewarding. I added a spoonful or two of textbook petits pois à la française. Nostalgia is made of such dishes.

Meanwhile, Appleby was making do with the asparagus risotto, which she found pretty much to her taste. I have had Ladenis-inspired risottos before, and they are one of the benchmarks of the modern haute cuisine kitchen. In particular, there was once a risotto of ceps at Chez Nico, which was served with boudin of foie gras... Ah me, that was a dish. This risotto was not in the same class, but it was made with the same mastery of technique. And then came the grilled fillets of John Dory with thyme oil. John Dory is a noble fish. Its flesh has a particular muscularity and delicacy of flavour, brought out by the slight carbonisation from grilling. After all that, Appleby declared that she'd had enough, so I ate the fromage blanc with raspberry jelly - a kind of petit Suisse for grown-ups - on my own.

While the thumbprint of the maestro is all over the menu, the actual cooking was masterminded by Paul Rhodes, late of Cheznico, which was, of course, formerly Chez Nico at Ninety. He is, you might say, steeped in the Ladenis spirit. That is all to the good. I am a great believer in the classical virtues, even if I am not very good at practising them.

· Open Mon-Sat, lunch, 12 noon-3pm; dinner, 5.30-11pm. Menus: Lunch & evenings until 7pm, £12.50 for three courses. Wheelchair access & WC.