This paper shows the application of a new 2D minimum variance filter to noisy RGB color images. The filter is derived from an image model that can be obtained without any onerous identification procedure of the signal generation process. Moreover the basic modeling assumptions are such that, when applied to RGB color images, they allow the implementation of the algorithm as three independent single-channel 2D minimum variance filters. Each filter has a 2D point-to point recursive structure. This results in a restoration algorithm whose main merits are in terms of simplicity and numerical efficiency.