Racine, west London

His name may be as English as fish and chips, but Henry Harris's new restaurant , Racine, is a triumph of regional French cookery, discovers Tracey MacLeod

It's a splendidly English name for a chef, is Henry Harris. Particularly for a chef who has just opened a restaurant specialising in regional French cooking. He's called his new place Racine, and let's face it, who would go to a gaff called Our Enry's for pot-au-feu? I'm not sure if Racine refers to the French word for "root" or to the 17th-century playwright, but either would be appropriate; there's both rootsiness and classical control on display in Harris's cooking, which has returned to its French origins (he trained at Hilaire, with Simon Hopkinson) after a long and successful spell in charge of The Fifth Floor at Harvey Nichols.

Racine is a specialist French boutique to the department-store eclecticism of The Fifth Floor. Like Conran's latest, Almeida, it offers the kind of regional cooking you might find in restaurants throughout provincial France; dishes like grilled rabbit with mustard sauce, tête de veau, tripes Auvergnat. They've never been particularly popular in Britain, even when France dominated our restaurant culture. But Racine is in a Francophone corner of London (its neighbours include Patisserie Valerie and Brasserie St Quentin), and the menu isn't totally hard-core; there's lighter fare, too, to attract the passing trade yomping between Harrods and the museums of South Kensington.

Racine had only been open a week when Caroline Stacey and I went for dinner, but it already had a comfortable, bedded-in feel. The dining room is smallish (75 covers), deep and narrow, and designed – in the best possible taste – in totally conventional modern style; brown leather banquettes, dark wood flooring, mirrors and spotlights, all lovely but not very characterful. And not at all French, by contrast with Harris's brilliantly evocative food, which sends you en vacances from the first mouthful: baguette and beurre d'echiré so good that it's like meeting a couple of old friends and remembering how much you like them.

The menu swerves between French and English, seemingly at random. So we have pâté de foie de volaille et fine herbes next to chilled tarragon and lemon soup. This might be designed to differentiate classic dishes from Harris's own creations; more likely it stems from a reasonable fear that "calf's head" won't play too well to a home audience. Anyway, it means that the friendly and well-informed French waiters get a chance to show their chops (or côtelettes, as they would have it).

Caroline started with a smoked duck salad; the strips of duck rare and red as carpaccio but with a gorgeous and unmistakably French depth of flavour. French beans, red onions and a dice of de-skinned tomatoes were smartly dressed with an anchovy-tinged emulsion. My warm garlic and saffron mousse with wild mushrooms was a mini masterpiece – a warm, shivering confection of eggs and cream, with a mild, slow-burning garlic flavour just held in check so that the vibrant saffron could make its presence felt. As the mousse cooled, it melted into a rich, orange-flecked puddle, ideal for finishing off those last five or six pieces of bread. "It's the kind of thing that could make you lick the plate," said Caroline, losing control of the critical faculties that recently won her the Glenfiddich award for restaurant writer of the year.

Caroline really showed her mettle when it came to the main course, dismissing rabbit in favour of tête de veau. This is a dish that varies widely in the execution, and a bad version could well put you off eating for life. Harris's was exemplary: the cheeks had a wonderful yielding texture, similar to corned beef, and the traditional accompaniment, sauce ravigote of capers, tarragon and mustard, was absolutely comme il faut. Caroline was apparently unfazed by the fact that the centrepiece of her plate was a heap of blanched brains. These, to my novice palate, were soft and pleasantly fishy; she agreed their texture is similar to that of herring roe. All in all, she couldn't remember the last time she'd enjoyed the dish so much (and maybe that's not a coincidence.)

My own, rather timid, choice of main course was a marmite Dieppoise – the Atlantic's answer to bouillabaisse. Shellfish, purple tendrils of tender squid and hunks of cod swam in a garlicky, cream-thickened broth. A side dish of new potatoes had been pot-roasted with mint, skin on, leaving them with a wonderful smokiness.

From Dieppe, I moved on to the Alps for my dessert of Mont Blanc, a sticky heap of meringue filled with whipped cream and a vermicelli of sweet chestnut purée. Caroline's petit pot of chocolate was harder work than a chocolate-based sweet should be: very solid and not helped by a topping of slightly cheesy crème fraîche.

That aside, our meal was a triumph, and surprisingly good value. We paid £40 a head including service and a £17.50 bottle of Saint Veran from the predominantly French wine list. Henry Harris's many admirers may initially have been surprised that he has chosen a modest, local venture for his first solo outing rather than something showier. He is certainly a star, but unlike some of his more extravagantly named peers, he seems to have opted for becoming a glowing fixed point rather than an exploding supernova.

Racine, 239 Brompton Road London, SW3 (020-7584 4477).