The Tasting Room, 13 Swinegate Court East, York

IF you wanted proof that York's no longer poor, proud and pretty, just look at the new eateries springing up everywhere.

As fast as the latest working men's club closes down a chic, contemporary new restaurant seems to open up somewhere else.

The latest to try for a share of this lucrative designer eating market is The Tasting Room, tucked away in picturesque Swinegate Court East.

According to its website, The Tasting Room aims to offer "fresh, home prepared food within a spacious and contemporary environment." And there's nothing wrong with that.

The decor is cool and minimalist - sophisticated pastel shades, pale wood floors, interesting contemporary artwork on the walls. There's perhaps a table too many crammed into the limited space, making it a little tight: but that apart, it's a pleasant place to eat, with nice views over the courtyard.

The menu is extensive, and determinedly modern European. The restaurant operates as a bistro over lunch, with an extensive and very reasonably-priced lunch menu, including everything from light lunches such as battered avocado with tomato and red onion salsa at £3.25 to salads, sandwiches and fresh pasta dishes and more substantial offerings such as calves liver with warm onion marmalade and port sauce, at £7.95.

In the evenings, the menu changes and the bistro is transformed into a candlelit restaurant. There's a set two-course dinner menu for £18.95 - or, good news for theatre-goers, £12.95 if you order before 7pm - from which you can choose a starter and a main course from a limited range of dishes that includes the likes of soup of the day, Thai spiced king prawns and salted Scottish rainbow trout with sweet potato and celeriac mash. Then there is a more extensive a la carte menu, offering a range of salad, fish, vegetarian and meat dishes.

A glass of clear, crisp house white at £2.50 for me and an apple juice at £1.50 for Lili got us in the mood and we helped ourselves from the dish of salty, delicious olives our waitress had placed on our table while we pondered our choices. I went for the set dinner, choosing the soup of the day - roasted pepper and fennel - to start, and chicken breasts filled with stilton in a port sauce on a bed of braised vegetables as main course.

Lili went a la carte, choosing the sun-dried tomato, crispy bacon and parmesan salad (£3.95), followed by guinea fowl breasts with cured ham and wild mushroom salad (£13.75).

The restaurant promises that "little bit of something extra"; and when my soup arrived I wasn't disappointed. It was delicious: thick, warm, rough-textured and with a wonderful, exotic, Mediterranean flavour that lingered on the tongue. It came with a hunk of floury, earthy bread - my only complaint being the absence of butter, which I had to ask for.

Lili was equally pleased with her salad, the crispy bacon giving the green salad leaves a delicious flavour and texture.

So far, so good. We awaited our main courses with expectation.

They didn't take long to arrive; and that was when a slight disappointment set in. Not because the food was any less good - everything we ate was, without exception, delicious - but because The Tasting Room turned out to be one of these fashionable restaurants that doesn't seem to believe in providing side vegetables.

I was OK: my chicken breasts - tender, flavourful chicken from which melted blue stilton oozed in a delicious, gooey mess - came on a bed of braised carrot, parsnip and celery that were cooked to a T. Even so, I would have appreciated a side dish of potatoes.

Lili's guinea fowl, however - a generous portion of two substantial halves of fowl which was beautifully cooked, tender and tasty - came with no vegetables at all, other than the wild mushrooms that had been promised.

The end result was that, even though the food was excellent, both of us were left feeling oddly dissatisfied after our two courses.

The restaurant's co-owner Sally Robinson later explained that when menus were first being designed there had been a conscious decision to create dishes that were "total dishes" and complete in themselves. Side dishes of vegetables could easily be prepared on request, she added. It would be nice, however, if the menus made that clear - something that is being considered when new menus are drawn up, Sally said.

Still hungry after our starters and mains, Lili and I ordered desserts, all £3.95 and listed on a board. I chose the apple and black cherry pie, which came piping hot and with lashings of single cream, the juices spilling out of the perfect pastry. A winner. Lili asked for the fresh fruit salad, again a generous portion that included a range of exotic fruits such as kiwi and passion fruit.

With a coffee for me to finish, the bill came to just over £48. Reasonable value for what had been excellent food in pleasant surroundings. I just hope in future they get around to mentioning vegetables on the menu.

The Tasting Room, 13 Swinegate Court East, York. Telephone: 01904 627879.

Fact file:

Food: excellent

Service: efficient

Value: reasonable

Ambience: modern

Disabled facilities: Yes

Steve and Lili visited on Saturday, June 21, 2003.

Restaurant reviewers aim to be fair and accurate. Any comments on this review should be addressed to Chris Titley, Features Content Editor, Evening Press, 76-86 Walmgate, York, YO1 9YN or e-mail features@ycp.co.uk

Updated: 09:05 Saturday, July 05, 2003