Taste of excess; Eating out

For the first and possibly last time in my life I went to Sheffield, and came back baffled. The restaurant which had promised so much and charged not a little, left so many questions unanswered.

Sample lines of inquiry might be: what did I expect from a starter which combined sweetbreads, feta, fennel and polenta? Is this what the professionals of Sheffield want from a night out? Should I have persevered through to pudding? And what possessed me to go there in the first place?

The first mystery has to be why is it called Milano? It is not an Italian restaurant and though the stone building on the outskirts of Sheffield, in a suburb called Millhouses, is charming, it isn't a mill. The menu sent to the office to tempt us might have put off a more cautious diner with its tomato and melon gazpacho, feta toastie and balsamic syrup, and cod tikka with yam bhaji and tomato pickle. But the owners' conviction that they are providing some of the finest food to be found in the north of England and employing, they claim, Rick Stein's ex-head chef to pull off such a risky stunt, was enough for curiosity to get the better of me.

Expense doesn't seem to have been spared in making the place look good (with the exception of a hideous sitting room, which I'll come to later). A listed building, formerly among other things a police station, has been thoroughly scoured, leaving golden stone on the outside, and a pleasing cream-to-beige scheme within. Tables are beautifully laid with white cloths, heavy modern cutlery that shows what Sheffield is justly famous for, sleek glasses, cellars of coarse salt and cracked pepper with little bone spoons, a beaded lamp and a single exotic, crumpled flower on each.

After dark, the artful floodlighting outside and its glow through bare windows made the restaurant look like the welcoming beacon it sets out to be. And the outside terrace with a stone gazebo was an unexpected bonus where couples in designer gear were taking appreciative advantage of a fine evening and a menu of imaginative tapas.

Italian waiters appeared in the starchiest shirts monogrammed with the Milano logo to perform friendly and professional flourishes that stopped short of pepper grinder wielding. Our expectations were running high. To optimists the menu, representing every fashionable cuisine - with a tuna sashimi with wasabi and sticky rice here and a Moroccan fish couscous there - looked innovative and with very few exceptions (oysters in June?) showed an encouraging awareness of seasonal ingredients such as asparagus, Jersey Royals, nettle gnocchi, and duck with gooseberry and elderflower. That the asparagus came with a truffle hollandaise, and some dishes sounded a little rococo didn't make us uneasy.

Eating got off to an ominously unbalanced beginning with an unheralded appetiser of hard-to-identify puree, perhaps of chicken, with a tiny piece of toast topped with chutney, around which was a tarry squiggle of balsamic vinegar. Then on to dishes, some of which we'd wanted, some we'd felt we ought to try. Nettle gnocchi - as brilliantly green as the snooker baize at Sheffield's Crucible Theatre - with parmesan cream and basil oil was the simplest and most successful. The couscous with chermoula- marinaded fish, the tangy north African marinade of coriander, garlic, lemon and cumin, was not objectionable, but the seasoning fell wide of the mark. The fish lacked the tang chermoula should impart. It was the sweetbreads though, buried under a mould of rocket, with cubes of feta, slivers of fennel, blobs of labna - a Middle-Eastern yoghurt cheese - all on a slab of tasteless and pointless polenta that raised the most serious reservations about what the kitchen was trying to achieve.

Main courses compounded our misgivings. They'd taken acceptable combinations to the limits, gone through all the right motions, chosen ingredients well, chopped and cooked with gusto and sincerity, but how had they meant the dishes to taste? The well-bred Goosnargh duck, in chewy chunks with tart gooseberries, and a pleasing potato-and-lovage cake together caused an affray. Rabbit and langoustine, with baby leeks, peas and asparagus, came close to satisfying, despite deficient seasoning. In contrast, a plate of potato whipped to sublime smoothness but excessive richness was over salted, as were green beans with walnut sauce. But it was monkfish overwhelmed by its accompanying pastry tart filled with fiercely spiced alleged crab (actually pork) and okra gumbo, that was a combo too far. In matters of taste, almost there is not near enough, and too much that we'd eaten was teasingly, uncomfortably awry.

Was this viciously up-to-date cooking, the chic dining room, bar and terrace all just a front? For then we discovered Milano's retro Northern soul. Victims of premature palate fatigue, we decided to take a nicotine break while we braced ourselves for puddings. The smoking room, an airless crimson lounge with ox-blood leather sofas, thick brocade curtains, cigars in cabinets and a lingering smell of aftershave, killed off our appetite for anything other than coffee. This dereliction of duty means I will never know whether chocolate tart with Turkish delight ice-cream would have repaid any remaining faith. With all that had gone before, I preferred to remain ignorant, and to leave after a good cup of espresso and sweet, fudgey petits fours in the garden where others seemed to be enjoying their tapas.

Asked to write our comments in the visitors' book, my companions were lost for words. On the way home they remembered what Dr Johnson said of the metaphysical poets: "the most heterogenous ideas are yoked by violence together".

The metaphysical poets are now recognised for their brilliance. Maybe, like Dr Johnson, we couldn't recognise talent when confronted with it, and I ardently hope that, at pounds 37 a head for two courses and wine, others will not feel inclined to be as mealy-mouthed. Anyway, there is a way to avoid Milano's menu conundrums: the platter of fruits de mer at pounds 42 for two. That could answer the need to eat simply and well, in style, in Sheffield.

Milano, Archer Road, Millhouses, Sheffield (0114 235 3080). Lunch and dinner daily. Mon-Sat 12noon to 2.30pm lunch, 5pm to 7pm drinks and tapas, 7pm to 10pm dinner, Sun lunch. Lunch around pounds 10-pounds 20, dinner pounds 25-pounds 30 for three courses without drinks. Mon-Thur set-price dinner menu pounds 19.95 for three courses. Major cards, except AmEx and Diners. Disabled access