Last week, I took the train to Leeds to review Jamie Oliver’s first northern establishment. Perfect for lazy foragers, the nine-week-old Italian restaurant is less than three minutes walk from the station. Simply stroll up Park Row and keep looking left.

The former Woolwich HQ was empty for three years before Team Jamie took on the challenge of bringing it up to date. And they’ve done a pucker job of it too. Exposed brickwork, soaring ceilings and shiny modern fittings make for a chic scene.

Iron chandeliers swing from aging, timber beams. Crates of fruit welcome you at the door (see picture) and - sorry to mention it at the start of a review and all - but the toilets are something else. Cute, wall-mounted cisterns, toddler-sized basins and dangly, porcelain pulls. Almost worth the trip alone.

You can’t reserve tables at any of Jamie’s Italian restaurants so I sent my sister Fiona ahead to skip the queue. Up from London for the day, she was drinking Jamie’s pink prosecco at the bar when I arrived. On the way to the restaurant our waitress Justina explained that seating is on a first come, first serve basis and the best spots appeared to be street-side, where diners are bathed in an ecclesiastical light paid for by the customers of the old bank.

Settling in at the back, Fiona tapped the menu and let out a sigh. “Everything is kind of faffy, isn’t it?” she said. It was. In fact it was hard to find anything that had not been faffed with. The steak was feathered and breadcrumbed, the scallops suffocated under ham and sauce, the mozzarella swathed in pesto. Worried, I ordered a bottle of wine to help us find a way though.

Inspired by a buttery Soave recently sampled in Ramsons in Ramsbottom, I went for the Calvarino Soave Classico Veneto (2007, Pieropan, £35). Until my revelation in Ramsons, I’d thought that Soave was an 'art opening' type of wine, with few applications other than putting people off drinking more. But a good one is a honeyish treat and Fiona and I were soon ready to commit to food.

First up were what the menu described as ‘the world’s best olives on ice’. With a creamy flavour tinged with molasses, these green ‘mammoth’ olives bring to mind rural groves, goat’s milk and birds wheeling overhead in the sun. The accompanying caper and anchovy tapenade wasn’t bad but the olives would’ve been fine on their own.

Fiona had the buffalo mozzarella. Something of a moz connoisseur, I love the way that this subtle cheese firms up towards the centre, like a chocolate fondant in reverse. It’s delicacy incarnate, a soft, simple treat and I have no idea what Jamie was thinking, placing a blob of salty basil pesto on top. The only explanation is that he knows he is ripping you off at £4.55 a slice.

For the main event, I ordered the shell-roasted Brixham scallops. Roe on (which will please people like fellow Confidential writer Neil Sowerby) they were perfectly cooked. The sweet, meaty flavour was knocked sideways by a salt-laden sauce, but the fennel salad on the side was a clever touch: aniseed and fish are well matched. Fiona’s ‘chicken cooked under a brick’ (literally, I’m guessing, in the huge, central oven) came with olives and ragout. She had a portion of truffle tagliatelle too. Pulling a disappointed face, she waggled her fork about a lot and didn’t eat much.

She did, however, hoover up most of a passable tiramisu and three scoops of sorbet for afters.

During our meal, we chatted to the table of six guys next door. “I’m well excited,” one of them said to me. “I’ve never been anywhere like this”. And his reaction goes some way towards explaining why Jamie’s Italian has a queue pushing out the door, seven nights a week.

Watching the chef on TV, it’s hard not to like him. In a recent interview even barb-tongued critic Anthony Bourdain praised Jamie, suggesting that other chefs who had achieved his fame and status would be snorting coke off nubile boobs rather than building a proper business and working for causes that he believes in. I want to believe that Jamie is doing the boob thing as well – just to make him less squeaky perfect. In fact, just thinking about Jamie that way makes me feel all warm and happy inside.

As a result, even though the food wasn’t right, I was happy to support his new venture - and everyone else was too. All around us, 215 people were laughing, grinning and buzzing about being in Jamie’s smart, new Italian restaurant. The waiting staff (Justina deserves a special mention) were flawless and I’d even go so far as to say that the basic culinary ingredients are spot on. The problem is that are just too many of them in each dish to make a really good Italian supper.

Rating:	14.5/20
Breakdown:	6.5/10 food 4/5 serivice 4/5 ambience
Address:	Jamie's Italian, Leeds 35 Park Row Leeds LS1 5JL Tel: 01133 225 400 Fax: 01132 089 850

Venues are rated against the best examples of their kind: fine dining against the best fine dining, cafes against the best cafes. Following on from this the scores represent: 1-5 saw your leg off and eat it, 6-9 get a DVD, 10-11 if you must, 12-13 if you’re passing,14-15 worth a trip,16-17 very good, 17-18 exceptional, 19 pure quality, 20 perfect. More than 20: Gordo gets carried away