‘YOU’VE got to come to Circo,” said a friend celebrating her birthday. “It looks fun.” So we sallied forth and found this striking new venue on Albert Dock – and fun is something of an understatement.

We were greeted by a lady in a top hat, tails, the shortest of shorts and a whip.

Assuring ourselves we’d not stumbled into somewhere we should really not have been, we went in search of our friends and eventually found them, hiding in a dark alcove sipping chilled rosé wine.

This place is striking. It’s huge, almost overwhelming. It’s eccentrically different. It’s possible to find a quiet corner for an intimate drink, and yet the place could be packed with drinkers and diners.

The staff are as much actors as they are waiting-on types.

The décor is stunning and the food? Just fantastic.

Those were just the first impressions of the newly-opened Circo, part of the chain which ran Blue Bar and Grill, Baby Blue and the Pan American Club on the Dock and now runs Babycream, Negresco and Korova, as well as Geisha, near the Philharmonic.

It is a brave venture, if only because it is so extensive and because a lot of money has obviously been ploughed into establishing something so refreshingly and stunningly different.

There are private dining rooms, alcoves in which to enjoy a drink and extensive bar areas in which to relax and some exquisite dining areas.

Apparently Circo’s heart and soul belong to a far-flung venue – one of Paris’s best-kept secrets, The Clown Bar, a fantastic place right next door to the Cirque d’Hiver, where the various clowns that have worked at the circus for the past 100 years or so have come to unwind and drown their sorrows.

All was quiet when we visited. We arrived not long after opening day and not much was moving. That will, believe me, change. So get there soon.

We attempted to order drinks in the gloom of an alcove but, moving to an adjacent table, we could read the menu.

There is an extensive and inventive list of cocktails, though judging by the contents of some of the creations, you’d soon fall off your trapeze.

We passed on them, but ordered a bottle of Western Cape Nederburg Pinotage (£16.95), a fruity, rich and medium to heavy South African offering. House wines are reasonably priced: £12.95 a bottle, also available by the glass, while Old World whites and reds ranged from £13.95 to £48.95 a bottle, with New World offerings exactly a pound a bottle dearer – £14.95 to £49.95.

Champagne starts at £48.95 a bottle, going up to a mere £295.95.

We did eventually manage to get to the massive restaurant, passing the two life-size models of horses with lamps coming out of their heads en route.

The menu is a clever fusion of unusual and familiar. Traditional French onion soup is paired with vodka tomato bisque, for instance. Verging on the trendy, there’s sushi and sashimi. Or the ubiquitous smoked salmon or chicken livers – albeit served with banana bread and a peppadew pepper reduction. There are also some mouth-wateringly inviting pizzas and pastas or their gourmet burger, served with blue cheese and sautéed shallots and a side salad – a tad expensive at £9.95.