When you think about it London doesn’t have that many top end Italian restaurants. There’s celebs' favourite Locanda Locatelli, The River Café, Theo Randall at the Intercontinental (effectively a Mayfair outpost of the River Café) and . . . and . . . I’m hard pushed to think of another.

And now there’s L’Anima which ticks all the boxes for metropolitan Milanese-style cool - glass fronted, white leather chaired, deceptively simple rustic cooking of top quality ingredients. it’s the kind of place that parades its ambition to get a Michelin star.

On the basis of the meal I had there the other day it deserves it. The food created by chef Francesco Mazzei, who was previously at St Alban, is quite lovely - light and elegant, just imaginative enough to avoid the standard Italian clichés, too sophisticated to fall into the trap of taking Italian food where it doesn’t want to go or tediously incorporating Asian influences. In short, not over-fussed

The menu is surprisingly short and contains a number of unfamiliar ingredients which are thoughtfully explained in small print at the bottom. I had an enticing-sounding dish of wood roast aubergine with unctuously creamy burrata (cow’s milk mozzarella) a great combination but still envied my companions charcoal clams and mussels which were simply sensational, faintly smoky with a just a hint of and chilli.

We shared some ricotta and herb tortelli with butter and sage - perfect silky, light pasta stuffed with nettle, spinach and ricotta.

My friend went back to the grill for his main course, salt crusted wild sea bass which arrived with roasted tomatoes and fine zucchini chips which we both scrumped but this time I was more than happy with my deep, rich fish stew with fregola a, couscous-like Sardinian pasta

We weren’t going to have dessert but got talked into a fresh-tasting trio of sorbets - melon, lemon and strawberry which were spooned casually on top of each other rather than in tight round scoops.

As well as the extensive mostly Italian wine list there was a short and attractive list of wines by the glass and carafe from which we picked a couple of glasses of Alois Legeder Pinot Bianco (a classic take-me-anywhere wine) and an exotic bronze coloured Pinot Grigio which went particularly well with the fish stew.

The only downside is the location which is very much in the heart of the City. Great if you work there. A bit of a trek if you don’t. But worth the detour, as they say.

L'Anima is at 1 Snowden Street, London EC2A 2DQ. Tel: 0207 422 7000