How nice to be proven wrong. I had come to the conclusion that the restaurant at One Devonshire Gardens was never going to work. Andrew Fairlie put it on the map and David Dempsey kept it there. But when those two chefs moved on, it seemed to go into terminal decline. When it first became Room ? a restaurant with a Seventies retro theme ? I ate a very bad meal there. There was an atmosphere problem, too. It felt irredeemably stiff and formal.

Fortunately, Room had owners savvy and mature enough to see that they had a problem and to sort it out. Now Room has a new chef, Mark Greenaway , a young Scotsman with several years' experience in Australia under his belt. The difference is chalk and cheese.

Where once the dishes turned out to be even more disappointing than they sounded (cuppa soup, jelly and ice cream, chilli con carne), now they are a positive delight. And when you understand the concept ? that the dishes are very loose creative interpretations of generally mundane staples ? you start to become intrigued as to what the chef has actually done to the dish in question.

Room makes it hard for itself. Anyone looking at the menu may just not get it. £15 for chicken tikka or fish and chips ? My brother-in-law was horrified. But when you realise that Room gives you a lot more than it might initially seem, and when you have listened to the unpretentious but loquacious waitresses talking you through each dish, Room feels like fun. And the place itself is transformed. Buzzing with life, stylish but not narcissistic; a laid-back vibe yet observant service. What a transformation.

There is a winning originality to the dishes. A classic Waldorf salad (grapes, walnuts, apple, blue cheese) had metamorphosed into a quivering gorgonzola pannacotta with a sort of deconstructed Waldorf around it. This was a delicate and special starter, as was the dull-sounding ?ravioli'.

That turned out to be one large raviolo, made with fresh pasta, containing a poached egg. It obligingly spilled open with light pressure, like the best sort of buffalo-milk mozzarella does, disgorging its eggy contents onto the plate to coat green asparagus and mingle with an impeccable Hollandaise sauce with chives. A sexy and highly seductive dish.

Main-course choices are agony. I have eaten in Room twice recently and still want to go back to see what the chicken tikka with its curried potato salad tastes like, also the chow mein with wild seabass. But the conflict would be with those dishes I have already tasted and loved. The monkfish ?thermidor' is not some heavy cheesey job, but plump, juicy nuggets of pearly fish encased in friable, ultra-thin pancetta with a fabulous lobster potato purée alongside.

In fact, vegetable purées are a highlight here, including the superlative baby-smooth buttery mash and a divine parsnip version. ?Gammon steak with pineapple' actually consists of unctuous belly pork, the meat melting and creamy, the crackling thin and crunchy, with wafers of oven-dried fresh pineapple and a fresh-tasting pineapple sauce.

The cooking of meat and fish is also spot-on technically. Sauces are light but full of concentrated flavour. Nothing on the plate is makeweight because each dish has obviously been conceived as an integrated whole.

One dining partner looked crestfallen when the ?fish and chips' turned up because the ?chips' had turned into a ziggy-zaggy wafer atop a luscious piece of fleshy, batterless cod. But then she tasted it, and I did not hear a word of complaint thereafter. Incidentally, the chips proper ? in the crunchy/thin French style ? are wonderful.

A lot of precision and care shows in the desserts, but they do not grab me in the same way the savoury food does. They look lovely but there is an element of style over content.

The orange jelly didn't gain anything much in taste terms from being inside a chocolate collar. It dwarfed the flavour of the fruit. A tiramisu cheesecake with coffee custard felt unremarkable after the delights of the savouries. I put in a plea for reworked sherry trifle, or peach melba or zabaglione.

Overall though, Room has had a splendid renaissance and One Devonshire now looks again like one of the best places to eat in Glasgow. Good value, too.

(Sunday Herald, 2nd October, 2005)