Fifteen

When Fifteen opened last September it was with the palaver that attends everything Jamie Oliver so much as farts on, plus the fanfare whipped up by a TV show that tracked the struggles of the restaurant's conception and the trials of its struggletown apprentices. This was no normal restaurant. A year later, Fifteen is still different: 30 per cent of profits are devoted to plucking youths from trouble's hungry maw and giving them another go. And it's working, sometimes at least. Nine of the original 20 novices are about to leave the Fifteen fold for restaurants including Taxi, Sapore and Scusami. That's great news. A bunch of new recruits is in boot camp and will hit the kitchen on September 17. There's no denying it's a good thing. But as a customer, that's just background. The apprentices are not on parade - they're training to be chefs not celebs - and you need real time and real dollars to eat here. That means Fifteen has to stack up among all the other restaurants you might choose.

Mostly, it does a pretty good job. The disco bunker decor is holding up, the place buzzes, the service is keen and customer-focused. Dishes such as the "fantastic salad" are emblematic, relying on great produce and simple techniques. Rocket is the base of the salad, jumbled with creamy mozzarella and fine prosciutto. You could do it yourself if you had five minutes at the market but the miraculous transformations at Fifteen are more about the apprentices than the food. House-made pasta dishes are a focus: veal osso bucco ravioli is served in a meaty reduction studded with beans. Slow-cooking makes the veal rich and tender. The same slow burn reduces a fatty hunk of lamb shoulder to mashed potato consistency; it's served with vibrant silverbeet and a crisp polenta triangle and is an honest, enjoyable dish. Less convincing is the pan-fried blue eye. The fish fillet is fine but it's outgunned by a profusion of chorizo slices lurking in a tomato broth base. The generosity can't be faulted but the dish was out of whack. In fact, on the day we visited, the whole menu was heavy on pork products: prosciutto, chorizo and pancetta turned up in five of the 14 entrees and mains.

My least favourite things about Fifteen have nothing to do with the food. While making a phone reservation, I was asked for a credit card number to secure my booking. Really? Yes. And if I didn't show up for dinner, $50 a head would be deducted from said card. It's an unfriendly trend creeping in at a few restaurants, including Rockpool Bar and Grill (for tables of eight or more) and Vue de Monde. Eating at a restaurant is always a transaction but part of the commonplace theatre of hospitality is to gloss over this fact until the discreet delivery of the bill. I'm sure there's a sound business argument for turning things upside down, but it makes me bristle.

I also didn't like being directed to the bar for a drink before sitting down to eat. Fifteen's sexy sculptural bar and brilliant cocktail menu make it an attractive holding pen, but we'd arrived on time and there were tables free. It felt as though we were being delayed just to spend more money. Sure, Fifteen is a worthy cause but isn't it enough that I've 'fessed up my Visa number, and rolled up to buy dinner?