Posh Indian restaurant Southampton

One of my more surreal dinners was taken while perching on a bed in an Indian restaurant in Mayfair. Gimmickry aside, some Indians are magnificent. Rasoi Vineet Bhatia, hidden in a discreet Chelsea town house, is a gem. And then there is the empress of the growing Veeraswamy empire, Amaya, a fantastic, funky Knightsbridge establishment where you might eat delectable lobster or crab streaked with the subtlest curry sauce. In the unlikely event that you've ever wondered what a restaurant critic does on his day off, you now know: he eats at Amaya. Hell, I'd dine from its dustbin.

This decidedly metropolitan creature, the posh Indian, seems to have journeyed everywhere, bar the provinces of Britain. Until now. Yes, it has finally made its regal progress out of the City, like a maharaja driving through the dusty lanes to Simla in his open top Rolls-Royce. Even in my nearby town of Edenbridge, Kent, the self-styled Quality Tandoori is chic, minimalist and frankly too good for us locals.

Now Atul Kochhar, who along with Vineet Bhatia was the first Indian to win a Michelin star in 2001, has gone further. After winning another star at Benares in Mayfair, he has just opened an upmarket contemporary restaurant in a vineyard in Hampshire, with head chef Jitin Joshi at the helm. So will subcontinental cuisine prove as socially mobile in the wild jungles beyond Southampton as it has in London?

Vatika is in a plain outbuilding decorated entirely in grey, including three stunning chandeliers shaped like wagon wheels and stacks of bottles from the vineyard. Diana finds the grey elegant and at least there is little to distract us from the food. Strictly this is not Indian but "modern British with an Indian twist". The brief menu offers no curries, though Vatika does cater for a few Keith Talents.

You realise this place takes itself seriously when bread arrives - with different salts in test tubes. So many amuse-bouches arrive it isn't funny. Creamy tubes of chicken liver pâté wrapped in filo pastry are the highlight. Service is meticulous, if slow. Delighted as we are to have water poured from jugs gratis, it is an hour before we take delivery of our starters.

Eventually Diana enjoys pigeon and beetroot infused with vanilla and Indian five spice. This comes with a miniature pot of jellied consommé, adding sweetness to the tender bird which is marinated in a tandoor; very accomplished. Not so my monkfish and cucumber: it has all the succulence of an old tyre after a hard life pounding the M25.