Let's hear it for the cuisine of Shanghai

For some while now this restaurant has ploughed a solitary furrow while critics have wrangled over just how authentic the Shanghai dishes are.

No matter, some of the dishes here are welcome and unfamiliar additions to the Chinatown repertoire and valuable for that if nothing else.

The restaurant interior is striking: the ceiling is painted deep fuchsia, the walls are a nondescript cream, the lighting is soft - and that's it.

For once, less really is more.

This is a comfortable, unpretentious place to eat.

For the nervous, the menu offers a safety blanket of familiar favourites, from crispy seaweed to sweet-and-sour pork; proceed and you'll find a host of good things from Shanghai.

Starters include drunken chicken; cold chicken marinated in sweet wine; or the paper-thin seasoned beef, slices of slow-cooked beef in a chilli-spiked, savoury marinade.

Also classic old-fashioned, pan-fried dumplings, with good crispy bits, and the wonderful thousand-layer pig's ear.

A slight exaggeration, as there are just 21 layers, but imagine small strips of agreeably chewy, streaky bacon, cut thin, and tasting gelatinous and savoury.

The grandstand main course is beggar's chicken.

The chicken is seasoned with pickled cabbage and shredded pork, then wrapped in lotus leaves and given a casing of flour and water paste; the entire parcel is baked and, when the casing is smashed at table-side, the fragrant chicken is revealed within.

You can also try sea bass West Lake style, or Shanghai-braised yellow eel.

Exploring this lengthy menu and the surprisingly sophisticated wine list is most rewarding.

ECapital
8 Gerrard Street, W1