Dabbous

Around the turn of the millennium, a memorable television commercial featured a woman searching for a bank that hadn't been 'turned into a trendy wine bar'. More than a decade later, the trendy wine bars are still there - and most of us do our banking online. But the future of digital is unpredictable, because now even cybercafés are being turned into trendy wine bars.

Cyberia was the first cybercafé in the UK, opened in Fitzrovia in 1994.The internet was uncharted territory. Early search engines were primitive, making the internet a lucky dip best left to dedicated computer geeks.

Like Telex, then fax machines, cybercafés were a technological stepping stone. The rapid progress of smartphones, wireless connectivity, tablets and laptops is making cybercafés obsolete. Cyberia shut its doors forever in 2010.

But Cyberia's successor is much more than a mere 'trendy wine bar', even if the casual look and feel suggests that's all it is. The premises still looks much like Cyberia used to - concrete floors, industrial ducting, bare lights, distressed sci-fi metal screens. But it pairs this casual vibe with an outstanding kitchen that can be described as 'Modernist'. It melds together molecular gastronomy, hints of San Sebastian, even the cool breeze of New Nordic kitchen, and does so with astonishing finesse.

Chef-proprietor Ollie Dabbous used to work with Raymond Blanc at Le Manoir aux Quat'Saisons, at Mugaritz in San Sebastian, at Hibiscus in Ludlow, then at Texture in London with Icelandic chef Agnar Sverisson. To this first-rate CV he has applied an almost Japanese appreciation of simplicity and small, artfully arranged dishes. Be warned that while the menu prices initially seem very reasonable, the tapas-sized portions mean that most diners will need to order four or five dishes each.

A 'coddled hen egg' starter was served in its cut shell, in a nest of hay. The egg yolk was cooked long and low, a favourite method of both the Japanese and molecular gastronomers such as Andoni Aduriz of Mugaritz; but it was also mixed in with woodland mushrooms and smoked butter. The result was rich and complex, evocative of bonfires and autumn, a reworked hit from when he was cheffing at the Loft Project.

Some of the meats are cooked using the slow, temperature-controlled sous-vide method; used with goose breast, the result is perfectly cooked meat, then pan-seared and served with quince that had been poached in wine and honey, giving it a mead-like quality. Just as you find with Japanese kaiseki, Spain's Nueva Cocina or New Nordic cooking, heavy sauces are avoided. This goose breast sits on a sliver of glazed croissant that has been soaked in kuzu, a Japanese starch; the unusual flavour of this base is an infusion of clover, milk and honey. 'I keep detailed notes and a scrapbook of ideas on my computer to inspire me,' he later told me on the phone. You certainly don't find dishes like this by googling for them.

The desserts are no less original. A 'barley sponge' was a rum baba, but the yeast cake was delicate and light, soaked in red tea; a chocolate and hazelnut oil ganache was paired with sheep's milk ice cream made the old-fashioned way, not with a Pacojet.

Ollie Dabbous is clearly a very talented chef. Yet his restaurant is not immediately loveable; it's stark and has an industrial feel, not helped by the acoustics which allow the sound of the basement cocktail bar to leak upstairs. But the extraordinary dishes, with their sometimes earthy or even metallic flavours, are as cutting-edge as you'll find anywhere - just as Cyberia once was in the medieval period of the internet, years before the term 'Google' was even coined.