Review, The Pass, South Lodge Country, House Hotel, Brighton Road, West Sussex.

On a brass-monkey night in January, the South Lodge Hotel looks good: grey-beige stone, triangular pediments, lots of ivy and lots of windows through which firelight and lamplight gleam appealingly. The lobby is wide enough to accommodate a Victorian coach-and-four passing through and sparsely furnished with plush sofas. Though the place dates from 1883, it has an ersatz feel to it, a sprayed-on faux-luxury. As a manager comes to greet you, your eye falls on a doorway through which you glimpse a horribly overlit green space – a gym? A swimming pool? – and you try to ignore it. On the way to the bar, you pass a cosy-looking restaurant, all wood panels and floral wallpaper and you think, ah yes, just the job. The bar is a mocked-up gentlemen's club with more panelling and chandeliers made of twisted shards of leather-coloured glass. You greet your friends, floor a dry martini and head for dinner...

And there, dear reader, I encountered one of the great disappointments of my reviewing career. The cosy restaurant is called Camellia and isn't the one we're reviewing tonight. We're reviewing The Pass, which is in the kitchen. Yes, it's the brightly-lit, green-glowing place about which I shuddered earlier. It's awful: 22 seats mostly ranged along the wall, where pictures of chefs-in-action are interrupted by CCTV screens showing areas of the kitchen where something may happen. "I feel like a security guard," said Chris. "Am I supposed to be watching that all evening?"

The dominant shade here is green: green leather stools and banquettes, green glasses, green napkin-rings, green textured wall-fabric – even our waitress's tie is green satin. It puts you in mind of ice and phlegm. Above our heads, the kitchen air-con blew a steady gale. It was like dining in a glacier. At the next table a woman with bare, goose-pimply arms drew her fur closer around her.

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