Russian dolls

Mari Vanna is in Knightsbridge, near those pale loitering houses that would be ripped up if only their owners could pay off the council, to be replaced with giant Barratt Homes, with Homes, or maybe Barratt, wrought in gold. The grotesque Candy & Candy development by Hyde Park, all man-of-steel strut, gazes at Harvey Nichols the way a troll stares at a baby. This is the land of basement swimming pools and female sorrow, Lamborghinis, fat teenagers, domestic slavery, tyrants going shopping, and Louis Vuitton bags for dogs. Saddam Hussein would love it.

In the midst of this nightmare, Mari Vanna sits like a dollhouse on the road to Kensington. Most new London restaurants are dark, glittering puddles, full of refugees from yacht adverts, pure Weimar Republic chic, but depoliticised, which leaves — what? Ashtrays. Mari Vanna is altogether more joyful and bright. It is an exploded gay Russian, an homage to painted furniture, porcelain ducks, chandeliers, nameless things in bottles, and doilies.