At the top of Oxo Tower Wharf is the Oxo Tower Restaurant, a large busy bustling place with a cracking view and a tumultuous bar. It's been a success since it opened. Drift down a few floors and there is a restaurant site that has always underperformed, it's got a decent view and has much the same catchment area and accessibility as the bear-pit upstairs but no-one has ever made it fly. This place has been home to a "big name" chef - Richard Neat, and a number of other concepts but each venture has ended up leaving with its tail between the legs. The latest attempt to overturn the Second Floor jinx is masterminded by Dominic Ford (who, in a past life, used to run the Harvey Nichols restaurant operations and so has a proven track record on the Wharf).

The latest big idea for the challenging restaurant space on the second floor is robotaki, and there is something very agreeable about the relays of little skewers - it certainly works for Zuma, Roka and Jin Kichi in Hampstead. It is also completely in-tune with the current obsession with grazing menus, degustations, tapas and meze - it almost makes you pine for a three course dinner with the largest course mid-meal. Bincho occupies a long room and the décor features plenty of dark wood, on the one side there are the windows and the Thames, while on the other chefs are ministering to six of those elegant little grills the size and shape of a window box. So far so good.

The menu straggles as only a mix-and-match menu can. There is a certain British reserve that makes us feel uneasy of dragging the waiter or waitress back time after time to add to the order. It feels inconsiderate, but such scruples should be banished. To eat well here you should go with the flow - order three different skewers, see if you like them, then order a fistful of your favourites. Yakitori usually refers to chicken and Kushiyaki refers to other meats. There are salads and some rice dishes - indeed the yasai yaki meshi (fried rice with Japanese vegetables) was very good indeed. Choice of skewers will depend upon your personal preferences but the tebaski - chicken wing - was good and meaty; the leba - chicken liver - pretty small, you'd need a quiverful to dent the appetite; the kawa - chicken skin - on the greasy side, it's crisper and therefore nicer at Jin Kichi; the sori - chicken oysters - tremendous; the unagi - eel - double tremendous; the buta - pork belly - sweet, rich and melting; the  hotate - scallops - disappointing, might as well have been steamed; the hitsuji - lamb - rather greasy; the honetsuki gyu - beef rib on the bone - was good and chewy, intense flavour. As you can infer it is quite easy to let this sort of dining run away with itself, each skewer may be small and have a reasonable price tag £1.20 to £2.50 but you can eat a surprising number of them.

Bincho is cleverly pitched, both the concept and the food are accessible and it has middle-of-the-range values and middle-of-the-range prices (providing you don't stuff yourself too enthusiastically). A good option for a few skewers, a cold beer and a view of the river.

Charles Campion

Bincho Yakitori, Second Floor, Oxo Tower Wharf, Bargehouse Street, SE1 (020 7803 0858)

Oxo Tower Restaurant, Eighth Floor, Oxo Tower Wharf, Bargehouse Street, SE1 (020 7803 3888)

Zuma, 5 Raphael Street, SW7 (020 7584 1010)

Roka, 37 Charlotte Street, W1 (020 7580 6464)

Jin Kichi, 73 Heath Street, NW3 (020 7794 6158)