Jan Moir Are You Ready To Order

It is not only difficult to get good tapas in London; it is difficult to get good tapas in Spain. Out there, for every bar with its own chef, anchovy filleter and commitment to freshly cooked items and finding good products such as five-star hams and the freshest, tenderised octopus, there will be 20 establishments quite happy to sling out microwaved slices of rubbery omelette and lumps of unspeakable bacalao that could be put to better use lagging a loft.

In some of London's tapas bars - and oddly, for a city with such a large Spanish population, there aren't that many - you can hardly hear yourself speak above the sound of ping! ping! ping! as the groaning microwave in the corner announces that another plate of greasy meatballs is ready.

But it doesn't have to be like that. Look at me now, sitting sipping a delicious glass of chilled sherry and nibbling some toasted almonds while wondering if I should have the clams from the plancha or the clams with ham.

Across the bar, I can see into a kitchen where a team of brisk, white-coated men of serious intent are moving between the plancha - the traditional flat-topped Spanish grill - and an island of stoves.

According to the menu, inside that kitchen are sardines, squid, quails, morcilla, chorizo, three types of croqueta, patatas a lo pobre, pinchos morunos and heaps more snacky Iberian delights. And this is not in one of the better places in Barcelona, Madrid or Valencia, but a new restaurant that has just opened in central London.

Fino was launched by two young brothers called Sam and Eddie Hart, who grew up in the hospitality industry - their parents own Hambleton Hall Hotel - and have long planned to have their own place. It occupies a large and surprisingly airy basement - it has a very high ceiling - just off Charlotte Street in the West End. Decorated in a stylish yet sombre way, it has lots of pale woods, a comfortable, velvety red banquette and, as befitting the sociable nature of tapas, a goodly number of tables seating six or more.

All the action takes place at one end of the room where customers can sit at a long bar - solo diners please note - and watch all the action in the kitchen, led by the head chef Jean Phillipe Patruno, previously of Chez Nico and Simply Nico.

The idea of a highly trained and gifted chef turning out gorgeous, gutsy tapas is an appealing one - and the food at Fino's does not disappoint. From a menu divided into plancha, seafood and meat sections, we start off with the two clam dishes; the first a nest of grilled sweet clams sitting on a bed of rock salt, the second a pile of the same shellfish plus cockles soaking in an aromatic broth of sherry and chunks of deeply flavoured ham. Both are fantastic.

Sucking the salty shells clean is a messy, but satisfying pleasure, while the depth of flavour provided by the sherry, the shellfish juices and the ham is slurpily ambrosial.

However, if the kitchen is going to add cheaper, grittier cockles to the brothy mix, then they should say so on the menu. Most diners are perfectly happy to welcome cockles on board, so long as their presence is advertised.

Elsewhere, pulpo a la gallega is not served on those rustic chunks of wood in the true Galician fashion. Instead, we have soft and tender roundels of octopus, dusted with paprika, anointed with oil and served on a white china platter.

As if in apology for its grotesque appearance, octopus has a delicate, alluring flavour, with none of the harsh, briny smack that its deep-sea habitat might suggest. All too often, it is cooked so appallingly - Ping! Here come the rubber nuggets! - that it gets a bad name, but even unbelievers should try it at its simple best here.

Fino's bunuelos de bacalao are puffy, golden clouds of lightly battered salt cod; the fritters then piled on to a plate with a dish of aioli - scrumptious. Diver-caught scallops each are grilled on the plancha to give a light crust and then plainly served with a zigzag of pepper sauce - irresistible.

Milk-fed lamb cutlets are scarily tiny - a 50p-size blister of meat, a skinny wand of trimmed bone - but served pink and delicious. There are milk-fed lamb's kidneys, too, which are lightly fried in a way that keeps their bite and earthy flavour intact as they hunker down on a piece of toast slathered with a "marmalade of onions", which was, perhaps, a touch superfluous.

Excuse moi? A marmalade of onions? It might seem a strange idea to pick up dusty old tapas from their down-table position at the bottom of the culinary league and give them a poshed-up, zigzagged sauce makeover, but Fino has managed to do this successfully and keep affectation to a minimum by staying true to the cooking roots and insisting on only the freshest and best of ingredients.

The service is smart, the crockery is gleaming, the napkins are crisp and, even at this early stage, the highly professional manager inspires trust and confidence that he is capable of running a pretty damn good show.

Each dish - including humble patatas bravas with a tomato sauce scented with smoky paprika - has the kind of vivacity and clarity that only talented kitchens can provide. And if they are taking their tapas seriously, then so should we.

There are even lovely puds, including a citrus assiette that features a crisp slice of lemon tart, a lime sorbet served in the shell and a good lemon mousse. More treats: doughnuts with vanilla ice cream, which are only for the seriously greedy, express lunches for time-pushed business people and a well-constructed wine list to suit all tastes and pockets.

We hugely enjoy our Veigadares Albarino (around £35), which is particularly good with the seafood. However, I am afraid that I can't tell you much about the atmosphere at Fino. At lunchtime this week, S and I were the only paying customers in the entire place so, to date, the clientele consists of two grotty old bores.

That can't last for ever. Book your tables now, make the joint jump in the way it deserves to. An excellent ring-a-ding (not ping!) addition to the London scene.

Fino's sister restaurant - a tapas bar in Soho called Barrafina - is also worth checking out . It is at 54 Frith Street, W1 Tel: 020 7813 8016). Barrafina does not take bookings.

• Fino, 33 Charlotte Street, London W1. Tel: 020 7813 8010. Dinner for two, excluding drinks and serivce, £70