Guy Dimond reviews

Monday, February 06, 2012 - Our waiter did express concern that we'd like the dishes, but we had no complaints about any flavours, not even the oddly sour flavours of the north-eastern sausages - fresh and perfectly cooked, nicely porky. Sour orange curry (gaeng som goong kai cha om) is a street food dish often sold in markets, the tartness of this thin curry imparted by shrimp paste, tamarind water and fish sauce. The Heron version contained chunks of Chinese leaf and squares of omelette containing the fern-like bitter leaf with no English name, called cha-om in Thai.

Wednesday, February 01, 2012 - Some of the meats are cooked using the slow, temperature-controlled sous-vide method; used with goose breast, the result is perfectly cooked meat, then pan-seared and served with quince that had been poached in wine and honey, giving it a mead-like quality...Ollie Dabbous is clearly a very talented chef. Yet his restaurant is not immediately loveable; it's stark and has an industrial feel, not helped by the acoustics which allow the sound of the basement cocktail bar to leak upstairs. But the extraordinary dishes, with their sometimes earthy or even metallic flavours, are as cutting-edge as you'll find anywhere.

Friday, January 20, 2012 - The eat-in meals are served in oblong enamel dishes suggestive of prison ration plates - in real life, not quite as prettily styled as our photographer's pulled pork, pictured above. But a death row last meal never tasted this good: baked beans made using black turtle beans in a hammy stock, braised sprout tops with the kiss of garlic, or a side order of shiitake mushrooms which had been pickled in cider vinegar, then given a panko crust and crisply deep-fried. Desserts might include a stout glass tumbler of ginger-poached rhubarb with peanut meringue and a rich, lemony ice cream.

Tuesday, January 17, 2012 - The menu concentrates on doing essentially simple grilled dishes very well. Some of the prices are eye-watering...Every dish we tried was top quality and beautifully prepared - but most of the menu is very safe and conservative. The cheapest steak, an Angus rump at 19 pounds, was flavourful and moist, the accompanying basket of chips (4.25 extra) crisp and dry. Seafood ceviche was possibly the most daring option on the menu; the scallops were cut pencil-shaving thin to translucence, the prawns fresh, but the flavours bland. Not even a coriander-sprout garnish gave it some lift.

Tuesday, January 17, 2012 - Noodles feature prominently. Singaporean-style laksa, and the Burmese/northern Thai dish called khao soi used remarkably similar-tasting spice mixes, and the yellow noodles used in both dishes were the same. Nasi goreng tasted mainly of the fried rice, yet contained much the same colourful hotchpotch of ingredients found in many of the other dishes: boneless chicken, shiitake mushrooms, lime leaves, spring onion, red capsicum pepper - a jabberwocky of nations and ingredients unlike any version I've had in Indonesia...I liked it enough to visit three times, even though it's not the 'The Real Thing' - but if that's what you're really looking for, you'll need to buy a long-haul ticket going east.

Friday, January 06, 2012 - Soif's food menu is a brief page, changing daily. Little sections of bone marrow were served like squidgy scallops that dissolved in the mouth; cooked with ceps and a crust of garlic, parsley and fried breadcrumbs, the result was very autumnal. Clams were simply served in the shell with lemon and coriander leaves. Offal and meaty cuts are well represented...Soif's split-level room is slightly rustic, vaguely Continental and a little louche, in just the way you'd want a wine bar to be.The service was informed, prompt, smiling. Of course, the place is already packed.

Thursday, December 22, 2011 - Once seated, the brief menu makes the wait worthwhile. Among the highlights of our meal were duck livers served with capers and fino sherry, a clever combination of feral flavours cut with acidity. Spatchcocked quail was moist, served with a slick of nutty romesco sauce. The meaty texture of hake had its metallic sea qualities underlined by clams and some spinach...The wine list is a delight if you like Spanish wines, and the service knowledgeable; besides the sherries and interesting producers you'd hope for, there are also seldom-seen Spanish digestifs such as the Basque Patxaran, which is similar to sloe gin.

Wednesday, December 21, 2011 - Tarte flambee is a dish from Alsace, called Flammkucken by the border region's German speakers. The version here is as thin as a crispbread, but topped like a pizza with smoked bacon (not the more usual lardons) and shallots cooked to softness; piping hot, it's a great appetiser. Choucroute is another Alsatian dish, a generous helping of warm sauerkraut served with German-style sausages, salted meats and pork charcuterie, a hearty, wintery dish with salt and pork the dominant flavours...Part of the joy of The Delaunay is that you're treated with equal decorum if you're a big spender, a celeb, or just popping in for Welsh rarebit or hot chocolate. It's a real treat of a place.

Monday, December 05, 2011 - The theory is that a constant stream of skewers of freshly cooked meats circulate the room, from which you take your pick. But on our visit it was a quiet night, so many of the advertised skewers failed to appear. Our chimichurri rump steak was a little dry and overcooked; in contrast, a rack of lamb was succulent and spicy. Pastels (pastries) are a deep-fried fast food served well-stuffed in Brazil, but the version here was a disappointingly near-hollow shell with hardly any cheese. Moist chicken croquettes and a hearty black bean soup were better...The staff were upbeat, the room good- looking, the music suitably up-tempo. But if you're after a more authentically Brazilian experience, look elsewhere.

Wednesday, November 30, 2011 - Kahve Dunyasi is a huge coffee bar chain in Turkey, with 200 stores. If you imagine Starbucks melted into a mid-range chocolatier, you're on the right track...It's all just too choc-tastic, but the ones we tried - a brownie, and a mozaic cake - were both excellent quality, and also incredibly well priced at under 3 quid each. The coffees are another strong card in their hand. The Turkish coffee was strong, dark and bitter, as it should be; and the huge mug of milk coffe with salep, a thickener made from a type of orchid root that's popular in Turkey, was rich and viscous, like a good quality hot chocolate.

Wednesday, November 30, 2011 - If you're visiting off-peak, you might get a better chance to try dishes such as semolina-crusted calamari (ours was good if slightly underdone), chilli pork ribs (fatty but tasty), or spatchcocked chicken smothered in pink grapefruit slivers, fresh herbs and shaved fennel. It's the sort of comfort food any keen home cook can make, especially if armed with one of Granger's excellent books...Once the kitchen kinks are ironed out and the service is as sunny in the evening as it is in the day, we might have reason to be as smiley about this all-day, no-bookings brasserie as Mr Granger is himself.

Monday, November 28, 2011 - If you think 'Welsh charcuterie' sounds like it belongs with Dutch wine or Greek sushi as 'things to avoid', you'd best try a platter of the Trealy Farm charcuterie, from Monmouthshire - the air-dried hams, game salami and lomo (pork loin) match or better anything coming out of Italy or Spain. A dedicated charcutier keeps it all tip-top. We were less impressed with the burger, in a too-sweet brioche-style bun; and by the cassoulet, which contained good meats, but in meagre portions and with the beans overcooked. The chips were pale, insipid, and undercooked. Cornish brill was better, garnished with brown shrimps and capers.

Monday, November 28, 2011 - A little basket of deep-fried courgette strips that would make a nice bar snack in Italy, the thin straws of the courgette cooked nicely crisp, is served here for 8.50. Both a pork chop and lamb leg were moist yet properly cooked, the pork flavoured with fennel, the lamb with a salmoriglio-style pesto; both very good. But the best dishes were the desserts: a creme brulee with a scoop of melon ice-cream, and a semifreddo that resembled a deconstructed Strawberry Mivvi...Arjun Waney seems to have the Midas touch, having been the financier behind Zuma and Roka - both first-class restaurants. Yet we felt a little disappointed with Aurelia.

Monday, November 28, 2011 - Oliver's influence is clear in the choice of ingredients - many of them British, with their provenance clearly spelled out. The fish used in the own-made fish fingers starter was not only fresh and good quality, it was also 'by-catch' - nice one Jamie. The combinations are creative, without straying into 'sashimi with hoi sin sauce' territory. The Gloucester Old Spot pizza included morsels of crackling, quince puree, slivers of raw apple, stinky Stilton and watercress; it worked.

Monday, November 07, 2011 - 'Lobster thermidor' was another 1960s classic, in this case deconstructed into a large raviolo, topped with a bisque-flavoured foam and microgreens: lovely. The deconstruction of heritage dishes continues through every course, with 'leek and potato soup' - blobs of starch in a consomme - to an 'apple crumble' that was a corral of fried doughnut batter balls. The cooking at One Blenheim Terrace is fun and of a high standard - but the catch is that you pay the price, with most main courses in the 15-25 pound range, and some starters just under a tenner.

Monday, November 07, 2011 - The core items, mainly for takeaway, are the salt beef or pastrami sandwiches, in white or rye bread. These are simple dishes, but ones you need to get right. Our pastrami and salt beef were initially hard to tell apart: both thin-sliced, both generously stuffed, though the pastrami was fattier. They were both good meat, though kosher prices are always high because of the supervision required: 8.50 is a lot for a sandwich, even if it does come with big pickled gherkin. 'The Deli Half & Half' is a better option for variety: half a sandwich (still huge), with a starter or side dish. The chicken soup had a wonderful rich stock, and can be ordered with either noodles or a matza ball - this version bigger than a golf ball, yet light.

Thursday, November 03, 2011 - We can recommend everything. The steaks are among the best you'll find anywhere, but be warned, the portion sizes are huge; even the steaks 'for two to share' can actually feed three. Our 'D-Rump' - the innermost muscles of the rump, aged for 55 days in this case - was cooked medium, just enough to make the fat melt, with the meat tender and beautifully flavoured. The triple-cooked chips are blanched, then fried twice in vegetable oil to give an appealing crunch to the surface, but maintain a yielding texture within. The side dishes and starters are just as good. The grilled bone marrow is huge, the lengthways-cut revealing disturbingly visceral pink marrow inside - but it melts in the mouth.

Monday, October 31, 2011 - The tapas portions are correctly Spanish-sized - that is, tiny nibbles. The plates are so tiny, in fact, I could cover one with my hand, so you'll need at least three dishes per person even for a light lunch...Baked duck egg was served with aromatic girolles, smoky peppers and tiny shavings of summer truffles; simple, but perfect. Own-made 'botiffara' - the Catalan sausage - was unctuous and faggot-like, but lip-smacking and luscious, the fattiness of the pork cut with big caperberries. Ajo blanco - the Andalucian white soup made from almonds - was barely enough to fill an egg-cup, but the flavours transported us to Seville. Razor clam - singular - and chervil root was a stroke of genius, the contrast of textures a delight.

Thursday, October 27, 2011 - Escabeche of mackerel was the best dish, the fish fresh and the marinade not too acidic. Our 'bife ancho' - 300g/10oz of rib-eye steak - would have been better if we had ordered it medium rare instead of rare, as it arrived heavily striated with inedibly uncooked fat. De La Panza looks charming, with lots of high stools, bar counters, with a rustic, tavern-like look that evokes Argentina. The wine list is brief, but the wines by the glass - especially the Zuccardi malbec - are good.

Thursday, October 27, 2011 - Ingredient quality and the cooking were impressively good, even though the advertised 'beef ragu' with our crisp, saffron-rich arancine turned out to be a speck of mince in the centre of these deep-fried rice balls. Another good dish was the agnolotti - a type of ravioli - with a rich, sweet beef sauce. The prices seem reasonable - 'stuzzicare' ('teasers') cost around the 3-4 pound mark, while the larger 'per mangiare' ('for eating' - as opposed to 'for steadying the table legs'?) cost 6-9 pounds or so. However, portions are smile-flatteningly small, best described as varying from mini snacks to big snacks.

Thursday, October 13, 2011 - The menu is fixed price, which keeps things simple. Slivers of venison were tender and pink, served as starter on a little round of celeriac, with fresh blueberries as a garnish and a flick of horseradish cream; a beautifully executed starter. Flavours are adventurous, without being too crazy, so sea bass was served on a risotto with crayfish and chorizo, the advertised 'coriander' restricted to a seed-sprout garnish, so the pungent flavour didn't overwhelm the rest of the dish. Braised ox cheeks received a more conventionally French treatment, the beef braised in red wine and served wwth a sauce flavoured with bacon, mushroom, and pearl onion; the meat tender and richly flavoured.

Wednesday, October 05, 2011 - The menu's brief, but very modish. A starter of Bath chaps - the cured lower half of pigs' cheeks - were served hot, with slivers of pigs' ears, crisply deep-fried (good) with hairs still visible (not so good). Beetroot, crumbly white cheese, walnuts and well-dressed spinach leaves formed the vegetarian alternative. A main course of duck breast, attractively sliced then served on a borlotti bean stew with a piquant salsa verde, was the best dish...The Rookery's a very appealing neighbourhood bar - although, as a place to eat, the service can seem a little brusque at times.

Thursday, September 29, 2011 - The burger, at 11.50, seems typical of the demographic this Gordon Ramsay restaurant is aimed at: food loving, but not poncey. The bun is made from shiny, brioche-style bread - slightly too sweet and pappy for our tastes, but it looked pretty impressive. The meat patty uses short rib beef, with a molten topping of a local cheese made in a Bermondsey railway arch...The obvious comparison to this joint is with Jamie Oliver's Barbecoa restaurant, as the two face each other across the One New Change concourse. But despite being a year late, and reportedly costing 5 million, my money's on the Ramsay operation being the one which gets repeat custom.

Thursday, September 29, 2011 - Good use has been made of a corner site which has seen many restaurants come and go, but this is by far the most comfortable, decorated in a comtemporary chic of bare brick walls, exposed designer lightbulbs and their cables, leather sofas and elk antlers on the walls...To eat there are platter-style dishes such as a a simple flank steak - nicely cooked, and a generous portion, served with good hand-cut chips. If you find the main bar a little too noisy, through the back is a slightly quieter area.

Tuesday, September 27, 2011 - There's a school-of-St-John terseness to the menu - 'cauliflower and bacon soup' or 'grouse breast, Beenleigh Blue and hazelnuts'. The connection is via the Anchor & Hope pub in Waterloo, where chef Kevin McFadden spent a few months working with St John alumni Jonathon Jones. However, other influences - France, Spain, Italy - creep in too, such as Spanish cured ham or hare lasagna...It's good to see less obvious British ingredients used to good effect, such as the pickled walnuts served with braised ox cheek, or the damsons used to flavour the ice-cream.

Thursday, August 25, 2011 - The daily-changing menu starts with nibbles such as shining Turkish olives, 'red cow' parmesan, and heaps of shoestring fries - the latter very on-trend in New York. Tomatoes a la Grecque was made with notably summery tomatoes, nicely soused and served warm; the olive oil and vinegar really sparked the already appealing summer flavours. Brandade was less of success...The bottled beers champion London's best microbreweries, namely Kernel and Meantime, both based south of the Thames. Now that's the sort of localism we can all support.

Thursday, August 18, 2011 - This som tam set the pattern for a good meal: well-made, beautifully rendered dishes, squarely aimed at farang tastebuds, in a lovely setting. Those bitter notes, the fermentation flavours, the chilli heat were absent from a roast duck red curry, which was full-flavoured but didn't merit the chilli heat warning on the menu. One of the best dishes was an eggplant salad - not made with bitter Thai aubergines but with the mild European kind, the delicate flesh perfectly complementing the scallops and mint dressing.

Thursday, August 11, 2011 - '54: braised pork with glass noodle' was actually red-braised pork belly, a slow-braising technique in a dark reddish-brown sauce. The meat is then used to top the highly elastic, translucent noodles. The bite of this spaghetti-shaped pasta is surprising, and the rich, warming flavours transport you to Dongbei with its long winters. Suan cai is the Chinese version of Korean kim chi, used in stews and hotpots to pep up the starch and meat combos, for example in a big bowl of pickled vegetable with pork belly; another hit. Wide, translucent starch noodles over julienned cucumber with red-cooked pork could also pass as a Korean dish with the pleasing chew of the noodles and crunch of raw vegetables.

Monday, August 08, 2011 - The coffee is a significant draw, as it's Rob Lockyear of Brewed Boy (the name of the coffee cart he used to run in Soho's Rupert Street) pulling the shots...Service on our visit was painfully slow and forgetful, if well-meaning. We're not entirely convinced it was worth the half-hour wait for our Full English, or the 9 quid charged, even though decent quality ingredients had been used. In the evening the menu stretches to the likes of charcuterie boards, grilled swordfish or mushroom stroganoff at restaurant prices.

Friday, July 29, 2011 - One of a score of new cafes in 'Brixton Village', this burger joint occupies a former shop unit and retains a shack-like feel and appearance...Aged beef from Ginger Pig is used for the patties, which are cooked medium rare unless you request otherwise. The buns are firm with good bite, but we found our hand-cut, triple-cooked chips to be excessively salted. Service was slow, but genial.

Wednesday, July 27, 2011 - This small, simply decorated ice cream parlour is handily located on the northern perimeter of Clapham Common. It's a low-key, traditionally Italian affair, with a score or so of the more traditional flavours made by Lorenzo Nardulli and his small team. We've found the ice creams here smooth-textured and clean-flavoured - just like a proper Italian gelato should be.

Tuesday, July 26, 2011 - A green papaya salad was perhaps the high point of our meal, for its sharp, refreshing flavours; but other dishes, such as the bahn cuon, were flabby in a way that suggested the rice casing was not freshly cooked to order. Fillings were also a bit meagre, betel leaf rolls small and a poor version of the ones we've encountered in Vietnam. After a long wait, our main courses arrived but the special pork chop rice was no better than the sort of fare you'd expect from a mediocre Chinese caff in Chinatown. Although the food was disappointing, Ladudu attracts plenty of custom, and the staff were charm itself.

Tuesday, July 26, 2011 - Theatrical presentation runs just the right side of silly; gazpacho was brought in a dish resembling a goldfish bowl with a lid on. Pungent of ripe tomato, a chilled cream of dill flower created a slick of contrasting colour. Although Jonsson rightly claims a Mediterranean sensibility to his food, he's successfully introduced some Swedish notes, the dill being one of them. Foraged ingredients are another, such as sea aster, in this case matched with some lightly seared wild salmon, freshly skinned white almonds and a streak of pureed cucumber...Hedone's not perfect, but it's one of the most interesting and accomplished restaurants to have opened in London for a long time.

Wednesday, July 20, 2011 - It's all a bit funky: primary-coloured Dualit toasters, potted herbs on the tables, rustic tables made of reclaimed wood. A large, refectory-style central shared table helps keep the feel casual...The menu's very straightforward. Porridge, bacon sarnies and fry-ups from 8am; assemblies of cheese and cured meats,for lunch and dinner - plus a few cooked dishes. Ratatouille topped with poached eggs, toasted sourdough and a grating of manchego cheese was a winner of a dish. The component vegetables of the stew were sauteed separately, then the sauce was added prior to serving to keep the textures firm. If you're after booze, there are wines by the glass, carafe or bottle, plus a few bottled beers.

Friday, July 01, 2011 - The finger sandwiches and tiny scones, although present and correct, are not the point of the afternoon tea. It is the Clark-perfected cakes that make the Lobby Lounge a destination. For example, the gateau opera, a traditional French confection made from layered almond sponge cake and soft chocolate ganache, was so perfect and petite it might have been assembled by elves. An eclair was the size of a ring finger, with suspiciously lavender-coloured icing, but it melted in the mouth with the flavour of violets. Even a millefeuille had been restored to the delicate French fancy it truly is.

Thursday, June 23, 2011 - Staff encourage you to order a selection of 'small dishes', which makes sense as the portions are indeed small, but the high prices do not reflect this. So that fattoush salad costs 14.50, and nibble-sized starter portion of lamb boreks (pictured above, though ours came without the garnish of flowers) cost 7.50, or 1.50 per mouthful. But this is Green Park, not Green Lanes. It's worth paying the price for dishes such as the crisply fried squid, spiced with chilli, cumin and cardamom; or the tomato and fennel side salad which came with a dressing of pomegranate, tahini and mint.

Monday, June 20, 2011 - An appealing dish of grilled octopus legs were wonderfully tender, but 14 pounds is a lot to pay for a starter of this inexpensive seafood. Red mullet: a small piece, beautfully cooked, for 24 pounds...All delightful, and all agreeable to a wide range of international guests. We couldn't fault Massimo on looks or cooking (though service showed an irksome tendency to upsell), but London has many very good and expensive Italian restaurants already, and with such a crowded market there are many equally good, and more affordable, alternatives for the discerning diner.

Friday, June 17, 2011 - This Provencal vegetable stew had been pimped up with little blobs of rouille and mussels prised from their shells. Wood pigeon showed chef-patron Joe Mercer Nairne's considerable skill with meat cookery: tender but not bloody, served with tiny potato cakes and delicately flavoured with new-season garlic. Dish after dish wowed us with its balance of flavours and sublety of expression, such as a dessert of buttermilk panna cotta topped with English strawberries and crumbed pistachios - delicate and restrained, and all the better for it. Much the same can be said of the service.

Friday, June 03, 2011 - The soup stock was clear in the Hanoi style, tasting intensely of beef marrowbone. The rice noodles were sheer; herbs decorated the surface. A side dish of saw-leaf, Asian basil, fresh chilli and beansprouts was provided to stir in. On an evening visit the pace in the restaurant had shifted up tempo, but the standard of the dishes had not dropped. A highlight was the slithery grilled aubergine topped with ground pork and nuoc cham, the orange-hued, sour-sweet dipping sauce...Cay Tre successfully captures the excitement of Vietnamese food, yet does so in a setting suitable for a special occasion.

Thursday, May 12, 2011 - Of the main courses, the 'jugged steak'was the best - the featherblade cut slow-braised until very moist and tender, in a rich jus with tiny pork dumplings. Dumplings also feature in 'The Queen's Potage', a seventeenth-century recipe from John Nott - though this time the capon or partridge had been substituted by chicken breast, resulting in a rather dull dish despite the sprinkling of raw pomegranate arils...It is the building that had the wow factor, not the meal. And if you just want to admire some Gothic arches, the appealing Gilbert Scott bar, next door, allows you to do just that.

Wednesday, May 04, 2011 - The dishes read like a progressive gastropub menu - 'small plates', steaks, Mediterranean influences...We were so impressed we returned for lunch the next day. The burger is another winner, served is a seed-studded bun, oozing juices and with fine, thin French-fry-style chips. There's either a cheese burger or the burger with foie gras, which adds to the appealing, slithery, extra layer of fattiness of the dish. Service was unfailingly enthusiastic on our two visits, though not always very coordinated. But most importantly Riding House Cafe has a lively, fun buzz to it.

Friday, April 15, 2011 - The staff at Kateh are international, service atttentive and understated. The high-ceilinged room has candlelit tables and even a small outdoor dining area. It's perfect for dates, or small groups...The dish called koofteh berenji should be more familiar to anyone who likes Indian food. This, the original version of the kofta, are balls of rice and minced beef; this particular version is stuffed with plums. It's served with a sauce of yellow split peas resembling an Indian dahl, so you might expect hot spice notes, but instead the sauce flavours are delicate and herbal.

Friday, April 08, 2011 - It was on a second, 'supper', visit that St John unravelled. Our booking was lost - possibly a result of a single booking line serving three locations with the same name. Service, slow on the lunch visit, lurched into bottom gear; our starters took more than an hour to arrive. The pricing of the wine list is very steep, starting at 26 for some very ordinary own-label French plonk (which retails in shops at 7.30), then escalates rapidly. Our main courses were fine but pricy, and certainly not worth a two-hour wait. The high prices are hard to justify when ingredient costs are cheap: for example, tripe and onions at 16.50.

Friday, March 18, 2011 - The rusting speakeasy-style entrance is as discreet as can be; inside, tattooed bar staff are mixing drinks. Small plates of bar snacks or bigger dishes are slid across the wide, steel-topped bar to customers...'Sliders' are trendy, starter-sized tiny burgers, often served more than one at a time. There's surprising delicacy to some dishes. Eggplant 'chips' had a crisply fried exterior, studded with sesame and a hint of caraway, and were served with a fennel yogurt dip. Other creations are far more tongue-in-cheek. We loved the 'peanut butter and jelly sandwich', that staple of US childhood, here reinvented as a playful dessert.

Wednesday, March 16, 2011 - Front-of-house service is charming, the muzak is soothing jazz. Looking around, the place has a timeless, Anglo-Continental brasserie feel and look...A starter dish of razor clam was served in a large shell, the succulent flesh chopped into pieces and mixed with pieces of unctuous boar meat and the grainy texture of butter beans. A sensational start...A steamed steak-and-oyster pudding had a crust with the appealing aroma of piping-hot suet, while the meat inside was tender and of good quality. Roast duck breast was very slightly overcooked, but also sourced well, though the fruit-bowl of chunks of orange, fennel, and beetroot on the plate might have been overdoing it.

Monday, March 14, 2011 - The new Clarence is now like a set from one of those 'cash-in quick by tarting up your home' TV shows, with bright colours, more light, better loos, table lamps shaped like ceramic dogs (really), and a huge gas-fired pizza oven. The pizzas are thin, crisp and come with an interesting choice of toppings, and are arguably better than those at Ciullo's just up the road...Yet The Clarence is still, at heart, a bar. The beers include their brews such as the light-bodied Bonobo ale (brewed at sister pub The Florence in Herne Hill), the golden ale called Weasel, and a wheat beer called Beaver.

Friday, March 11, 2011 - It was the simplest dishes that worked best. Chunks of kohlrabi were cut like an apple and served raw, with a simple dip of mint-flavoured soured cream. Thin slivers of cured halibut were dressed only with lemon-infused olive oil, garnished (for effect) with shiso sprouts and samphire shoots...'Our dishes are designed for sharing,' the menu says. 'We recommend three savoury dishes per person.' Yet most of these tapas-sized dishes hover around the ten pound mark, and puddings add 6.50 or more. But to experience mastery of culinary fusion, Nopi is currently the place to be.

Friday, February 25, 2011 - Highlights included a chunk of roast pork belly. The skin looked dense but was as crisp as fat Pringles, while the meat below was full-flavoured and not too fatty; masterfully cooked. This was accompanied by some rich, dark black pudding on a golden cider sauce. Another dish that impressed was a fillet of pollock, also with perfectly crisped skin, but with the flesh just-cooked past translucence: perfect...Service and bookings in the first weeks were still muddled, but the place has a nice vibe.

Friday, February 25, 2011 - A pewter-clad bar dominates the ground floor of this art deco pub, behind the bar there's a big and busy open kitchen. Original 1930s oak panelling lines the walls, yet it's light and refreshingly modern in look...A salad of mixed beets, soft goat's cheese and pickled walnuts was a good start. Rib steak was a cut above, and as you'd expect at 21 pounds, correctly rare, moist and flavoursome. Chips were of the skinny, french fry variety...It's the congenial atmosphere and friendly service that are the real draw.

Friday, February 25, 2011 - Lantern's a cosy neighbourhood place: part wine bar, part bistro, simply but thoughtfully decorated with blackboard-paint walls, bare floorboards, Ercol chairs, all low-lit...We were disappointed by our hanger steak (onglet, 9 pounds), which was barely a few starter-sized morsels of beef in salad. Yet the other dishes were generous: the pork terrine served in a ramekin, for example, or 'Camille's daily soup', in this case a very rich but gently spiced roasted pumpkin puree,topped with flaked almond. While most dishes are generically European in origin, 'braised tofu and curly kale' was a simple stew which, Camille told us, was African in origin - though it tasted like hippy food to us.

Friday, February 18, 2011 - We were struck by the presentation, colourful and artfully constructed with garnishes, pretty blobs of purees, and herby sprouts. It wasn't all show either, as the ingredient quality hadn't been forgotten. Deep-fried balls of 'crab and sweetcorn cake' were more crab than corn (a good thing), well-matched with a zingy salad of tarragon leaves and a garnish of lime mayonnaise. Koftas of lamb were imbued with rich spice flavours and nuggets of prune and walnut, served with a pearl barley tabbouleh...Don't be scared to come here even if you're not going to the Roundhouse - it's a destination diner in itself.

Friday, February 18, 2011 - This pub was recently spruced up by new tenants with culinary ambitions. It looks good, nicely understated to the point of being spartan, with chummy staff and a simple printed menu on the bar...The pricing is a bit steep for pedestrian cooking. A venison wellington had a pastry shell that was doughy and undercooked; filleted mackerel was harder to get wrong. Puddings include prune and Armagnac tarte, or chocolate pecan torte. We'd pop into the Perseverance for a glass or two of wine, but on the basis of our visit, there are many gastropubs doing a better job, at a fairer price, to make this a culinary destination.

Thursday, February 17, 2011 - Dishes unique to Afghanistan include aushak, delicately translucent ravioli that are filled with a julienne of leeks, then topped with spicy meat sauce and a drizzle of yogurt. This is served with a disc of tandoor-cooked Afghan bread - not like Indian naan but the dryer, frisbee-like version of Central Asia. Mantu is another style of dumpling dish that's superficially similar to aushak, though these dumplings are lamb-filled...So the food's unusual and wonderful, the prices low. But there are just a few caveats. Ariana II is not licensed, so you need to bring your own booze.

Thursday, February 10, 2011 - It's low-lit, looks on-trend and is immediately appealing...The hams are selected by the Mullins from a producer in Spain; the pata negra's aged for five years instead of the more usual three. There's a good selection of Italian cheeses, but there are also nods to New York fashion with dishes such as mini pork-and-foie-gras burgers. The cooked dishes, also quite small as is the current vogue, are put together with aplomb. A little tower of sweet-tasting braised short rib of beef was balanced on a disc of polenta, with some cavolo nero as a garnish and fried sage leaves on top.

Wednesday, February 09, 2011 - Some dishes exceed expectations, others can raise false hopes. Yet all the dishes are beautifully plated, in haute cuisine style...The main courses, although good, had less wow factor than the starters. 'Powdered duck' was actually two plump legs - from a fat duck, of course. They looked like comice pears, garnished with tiny fennel sprouts, served with a shard of smoked and cooked fennel and a bowl of butter-and-potato mash. Good, but not a stand-out dish. A slow-cooked chunk of tender beef rib also had a fairly orthodox appearance, but the surprises were in the accompanying flavours and textures.

Thursday, February 03, 2011 - The menu's proudly British, seasonal, and far more avant garde than it needs to be, judging by the conservative-looking Mayfair-on-Friday diners on our visit. Starters included a tangle of shaved fennel and celeriac, served over a poached egg with a citruous dressing; for us the flavours didn't quite gel. A starter of pumpkin souffle was granular and dense, more like a muffin in texture...If the dishes cost two-thirds of the price charged, this could be a contender. But - and not for the first time - Peyton's place is trying a little too hard, then expecting.

Thursday, February 03, 2011 - Past the door staff and cloakroom, this club-like ground-floor bar is beautiful, with a chiaroscuro of Soho passers-by through the stained glass. The tan leather seats are sumptous, every surface is polished, the service impeccable. It feels comfortable and luxurious. The brief cocktail list (mostly 8.50 each) includes some of their own creations, and jolly good they are too...The bar menu's brief, the dishes pricey. The burger and chips was fairly pedestrian, the grilled quail a morsel, and the dish called 'monachelle gratin' turned out to be a tiny dish of pasta shells in a simple sauce costing 9.85.

Thursday, January 20, 2011 - Our burger lived up to the accolades - big, a bit sloppy, made with prime ingredients. The minced 'chuck steak' (braising steak) is 28-day dry-aged, and minced daily. The sourdough buns are baked daily to Yianni's specifications. The result is like the sort of burger you'd find in a first-rate diner in the US, even down to the processed sliced cheese oozing down through the bun. Our chips were a bit disappointing - skinny fries in the McDonald's mould, but a bit limp by the time they arrived. The onion rings were exemplary - crisp on the outside, soft in the core, and huge.

Thursday, January 13, 2011 - The cafe's run by Jackson Boxer - brother of Frank who runs Frank's car-park-rooftop cafe in Peckham, and son of Charlie, who owns a charming Italian deli in Bonnington Square called Italo. The menu's brief, seasonal, and well-sourced. Weekday lunch options might include a simple parsnip-and-carrot soup, drizzled with olive oil; or a slice of goats' curd and spinach tart, served with a handful of rocket. Kale-and-chickpea stew is ladled onto bruschetta, with some parmesan grated on top. Sandwiches include a doorstep of focaccia filled with air-dried ham and melted cheese, with some pickles and rocket on the side.

Wednesday, January 12, 2011 - The best dishes were the simplest, namely the shaaks - vegetable curries - such as the okra stir-fry or the black-eyed bean dish served as part of the Gujarati thali. These were fresh and made with obivous care. We noticed that our fellow diners were tucking into the South Indian dosas and bhel pooris with great relish. We were later told that Mischief also has a Gujarati chef, so it's worth asking who is cooking on your visit and then ordering their specialities accordingly.

Wednesday, January 12, 2011 - The rooms have as much personality as an office equipment showroom. The menu's pricey, and a little old-fashioned; appetisers appeared unbidden, even sorbets between the starter and main course. But to the chef's credit, the cooking's very good. A starter of king prawns was pan-fried and served with puy lentils, bacon and a vinaigrette which tied the elements together. A fillet of brill was nicely grilled, and attractively presented with baby clams in the shell, baby leeks and a lemon beurre blanc. The wines by the glass are good, the service was nice and solicitous.

Thursday, January 06, 2011 - The food at Cassis is pretty damn good, fairly expensive, and with few surprises. The wine list is stacked full of fantastic wines at prices which aren't rapacious, though a sommelier is on hand should you wish to up your game...Some aspects of the meal stood out - the breads were a highlight - while others struggled to make an impact. The pates were perfectly correct but lacked the depth of interest, flavour and verve of the selection of Bar Boulud just down the road. Pan-fried red mullet with fregola (Sardinian couscous) would have been a bland dish without the addition of little brown shrimps.

Tuesday, January 04, 2011 - Our favourite of the many tapas-sized dishes was a dish of pork, chilli and 'gapi', the pungent flavour of the fermented shrimp paste (ngapi), served on fresh betel leaves to make a finger-sized wrap. Other dishes possibly suffer by trying too hard, or having a couple of ingredients too many...Kopapa is not the sort of place that will suit traditionalists. Plate sizes are small, the hard caff seats at odds with the precocious pricing and small portions. But for the bungee jump of flavours and textures that is Peter Gordon's cooking, Kopapa is unmissable.

Tuesday, January 04, 2011 - We loved the 'Country Living' interior, and the chirpy service in the first-floor dining room. We were less inspired by the menu. Although simple British food is a fine thing, there's a thin line between a simple menu and a dull one...We chose the steak pie, which contained good quality chunks of soft beef and had a crisp pastry lid; and a rib-eye steak, aged 35 days on the bone to add flavour. They were nicely prepared, but not impressive enough in themselves to make Grazing Goat a destination eaterie.

Tuesday, December 21, 2010 - Icelandic cod was a smallish portion for a main course costing 16.50, but the flesh was firm and attractively seared on one side. Colourful garnishes included little melon-scoops of courgette and a mussel shell, for effect. Venison meatballs had a stronger, gamier flavour than their pork or veal cousins, tender and moist, the plate garnished with a yellow blob of pureed sweet potato, baby carrots and swiss chard...The cooking at Verru is nowhere near as good as places such as Pied a Terre or Maze, where Lesment has previously worked, but then prices - although far from cheap - are also much more modest.

Wednesday, December 08, 2010 - At first glance, the menu reads like the usual Thai Top Fifty. But the dish presentation is modern and stylish, possibly helped along by the chef's background at Busaba Eathai, and the manager's experience at Mango Tree and Awana.Som tum was a decent version, the zingy salad made with plenty of grated green papaya - no carrot or cabbage substitution here. Overall though, our meal at Ora was a disappointment. Portions were small, prices on the high side, service a bit fumbling. For us, it just lacked the essential wanna-go-back factor.

Wednesday, December 01, 2010 - North Road restaurant is understated, elegant, sophisticated. The chairs, I noticed, are the classic (Danish) Moller design used at Noma. Service is smooth, the atmosphere grown-up...New Nordic Cuisine is very much about the things you don't do to the food. Sauces are not heavily reduced, butter is virtually absent, cream is used only in some desserts. Meats are not slow-braised. The aim is to reduce the amount of 'cooking'; it's about the supremacy of ingredients over technique. Dishes are lighter and healthier than their French equivalents. A main course of deer loin in a beetroot sauce was a big surprise. The texture of the meat was even, and although perfectly cooked and moist.

Wednesday, December 01, 2010 - The dishes are true to the flavours of south-eastern Anatolia. A mixed plate of mezze will include good versions of the more familiar dishes, from tabule or grilled aubergines to beans cooked various ways, but also more unusual dishes such as mercimek kofte - spiced lentil koftes. They all had the vibrant flavours of fresh herbs and freshly ground spices...Diced lamb filled with spiced butter was rich and tender. The sogan kebabs - ground lamb with chargrilled shallots topped with pomegranate sauce - had the pleasingly sour-sweet flavours which you can find along the Silk Road from Anatolia to Central Asia.

Tuesday, November 16, 2010 - Although The Georgian does borshch, blinis and even grape pudding with walnuts, it also serves croissants, scrambled eggs, club sandwiches and toast with Marmite. Of the Georgian dishes we tried, khachapuri - cheese bread - was the highlight, the pastry soft and flaky and the cheese within soft, warm and oozing. The pelmenis - ravioli-like dumplings - were also hearty, wintry food, filled with minced pork and beef and served in a minted yogurt sauce. Ask for ajika - a spicy relish - to pep up the stodge.

Thursday, November 11, 2010 - Our T-bone steak was disappointing. While the centre was chewy and red, the edges were tough and overcooked...Grilled pheasant, also curiously cut into slices as if we were invalids, was a better choice, but came with no side vegetables; grilled fennel and a bowl of triple-cooked chips each cost 3.50 extra. Starters were a bit unremarkable for the prices charged - 6.50 for some slices of limp beetroot with ricotta, for example. A dessert of 'payn per dew' (an old English spelling of the French 'pain perdu', aka 'French toast' was off, so we had the 'warm chocolate cake' which was actually more of a fondant.

Friday, November 05, 2010 - Tearing into it was a primeval experience. Porterhouse steaks comprise the two most choice cuts of beef - short loin and fillet - on each side of a huge T-bone. It was so delicious that we chewed the meat straight from the bone, like cavemen...All the other details are proper and correct too. Big bones are split lengthways and roasted to bare the gelatinous bone marrows, topped with melted onions; you can have this as a side order or starter. Both Stilton hollandaise and anchovy butter added their own twists to the murderous flavours. The beef dripping chips were crisp, fat and tasted of the land.

Wednesday, October 27, 2010 - The menu's ambitious and stoically British, if immodestly priced. Game is currently a highlight, with partridge and rabbit among the options. These main courses hover around the 18 pound mark; side orders, such as chips or green salad, cost extra. Lamb's tongues were barely recognisable as such, the plate garnished with a puree of swede and crisp rosemary leaves. A main course of duck was very salty, even allowing for the fact it was salt-cured; the same mistake of oversalting was apparent in the slow-cooked ox cheek, though the meat itself was very tender and flavour-packed.

Friday, October 22, 2010 - Trim, well-turned staff brought a succession of orders in single-portion, cast-iron pans and dishes, all with perfect timing. Every sign indicated a kitchen running like clockwork. Simple dishes, done well, don't need much elaboration. Unfussiest of all was a starter of bacon and Herefordshire snail pie with a flaky pastry crust, pub-style. Showing more of executive chef Anthony Demetre's Michelin-star pedigree was a starter of warm salt cod brandade, served with a 'cromesqui', which turned out to be a tiny croquette filled with a deep green parsley liquid which exploded over the dish once cut.

Monday, October 04, 2010 - Samarqand in Marylebone celebrates the food of contemporary Uzbekistan, and does it in some style...Plov is prepared the Uzbek way, correctly glistening with so much fat it resembled stir-fried rice more than the delicate, aromatic lamb and rice dishes of Iran or India. The lagman noodles were exemplary, freshly made and served in a simple beef and vegetable broth. Meat-filled wheat pasta dumplings is another dish that crops up from Korea to Poland, with remarkably similar names, but this manty - minced lamb dumplings, served with yogurt dips - is distinctively Central Asian.

Monday, October 04, 2010 - Owner Julie Vu has made great effort to make the tiny interior boutique-like. But above all, the Vu family have made a greater effort with their banh mi - Vietnamese-style filled baguettes - than some of their competitors...The fillings are assembled to order. The classic pork version, consisted of a smear of pate, a slice of pressed ham, roasted pork and the usual salad trimmings of pickled slivers of carrot and daikon with lettuce. Although not filled as generously as, say, the renowned version at Baoguette in New York, this version would pass muster in Hoi An market.

Friday, September 03, 2010 - The result is a deep-based yellow pizza base with an appealing granular texture, not the thin, slightly elastic base of the Neapolitan version. Otto's also chosen to use a few offbeat toppings. We're not sure the pizza purists would approve, but we enjoyed our toppings of vegan 'cashew cheese', and the roasted aubergine with blue cheese...The friendly, but amateurish service became patchier as the pace picked up. Try to visit on a quiet night, if you can.

Tuesday, August 31, 2010 - There are so many alluring antipasti and 'small eats' it's a wonder anyone ever makes it to the secondi piatti. A traditional Tuscan crostini of toasted bread topped with a coarse chicken liver pate is typical of simple Tuscan food, though here it has the distinctive aroma of freshly-grated truffle on top...A more experimental approach is shown with zucchine, shaved into zest-like strips then deep-fried. The result, served piping hot, resembled Japanese tempura, the effect enhanced by beautiful serving bowls.

Tuesday, August 31, 2010 - The attraction of a place like Polpetto is undoubtedly the buzz - our fellow diners, many of them Soho media types, were dressed up and in party mood. But the food should also live up to the promise, and our meal was patchier than we'd have hoped for. A dish of prawns in a chilli and tomato sauce would have been better if the prawns had been deveined, and you can get a better cherry tart at the Curzon cinema around the corner. Better, though, was a simple salad of finely-cut fennel with mint, ricotta and peas.

Friday, August 13, 2010 - Everything about Shaka Zulu is as subtle as a vuvuzela. You enter the first basement via a descending escalator, the passage lined with cowrie shells and gaudy carvings...The best dish was a simple 7oz fillet of springbok, the meat of the antelope tender and moist. Less impressive was the South African national dish, bobotie. This bowl of spicy minced beef was overcooked and consequently dry, the egg-based topping shrinking from the edges of the pie dish. The rice and sambals promised with the dish didn't materialise, and staff appeared inexperienced and ill trained.

Monday, August 09, 2010 - The staff were charming, courteous, attentive, discreet. They even seemed to be relaxed and enjoying themselves...A cheese souffle is served in an individual ramekin, so small you need side orders and other courses to turn it into a meal; we opted for the iceberg wedge with ranch dressing. Other options included sole veronique, chicken a la king and vitello tonnato. It struck us that this menu from decades past might be nostalgic comfort food for the many silver-haired ladies sitting around us. We left still hungry.

Tuesday, July 20, 2010 - The pau bhaji is spot-on, as is its non-veg cousin, the keem pau (made with spicy minced lamb). The chilli cheese toast here is far superior to any I've eaten in Bombay, as it's made with good quality white bread and cheese - both hard to find in Bombay. The house black daal is rich and earthy, nearly a meal in itself when paired with breads or rice. Less impressive are the biryanis, which Irani cafes are normally renowned for. Some crunchiness is good, but not this much - the rice was too dry and overcooked.

Friday, July 09, 2010 - The ten or so ice-cream flavours transport you straight to Italy: chestnut, hazelnut, even the liquorice-hint of fennel and pine nut. Smooth and perfect-textured, just as they should be - unless you order the rice gelato, which has an interesting, almost crunchy texture. Plan B is the sorbets. Blackberry, melon, peach, even espresso - all appealing choices. The best is still to come: the granitas.

Wednesday, June 30, 2010 - Meat cookery is a strong point, from the dark pink and tender slivers of quail in a starter salad, to the high-quality beef used in a '12oz grill prime NY steak'. Roasted lamb shoulder was also simple, but perfectly cooked to tenderness and full-flavoured...The menu descriptions of bistro-style dishes didn't actually match what we were brought, most noticeably a 'home made pork terrine', which arrived without the advertised cornichons and toast. We couldn't help thinking things would have run much more smoothly if the chef had been in the kitchen instead of chatting with his pals for the latter half of our meal.

Wednesday, June 30, 2010 - So how is 28-50's wine list? Delightful. It's a real joy to be able to sample three or four distinctively different, high-quality wines, matched to food, and come out blinking into the daylight still sober...The food menu is just as enthusiastically prepared as the wine list, with ingredients of high quality, served at City prices in portion sizes which are not especially generous. But we enjoyed our three little fillets of pan-fried red mullet, served with a bouillabaisse-like sauce of clams and neatly diced veg; and a plate of charcuterie, Spanish and Italian, which gave a range of flavours and textures as varied as the wine list.

Wednesday, June 09, 2010 - The month-old Nottingdale Cafe has River Cafe aspirations, at first evident in the striking architecture: a modernist wave of glass over concrete, overshadowed by the (also new) Monsoon and Talk Talk offices...The menu reads well: brief, Italianate, changes every ten days. The wine list has lots of carefully considered bottles from Spain, France and Italy, mostly, at reasonable mark-ups.The staff are welcoming, upbeat, accommodating. It's just that the dishes, on our visit at least, were of such variable quality and such steep pricing that we're in no rush to go back.

Thursday, June 03, 2010 - In many ways the newer Abu Zaad is a generic Edgware Road Middle Eastern restaurant - no alcohol , tiled interior, big ornate lanterns, Arabic satellite TV, nutty music - but the menu lists many brilliantly executed Damascene dishes seldom seen in London. A bowl of fattet hommos comprises chickpeas, crisp fried pieces of flatbread, and garlicky yoghurt, garnished with paprika and chopped parsley, served warm. Another vegetarian, main-sized starter is the hara isbah, pasta strips cooked up with tamarind and lentil, mixed up with more of that crisp fried bread, then topped with fresh coriander leaves and big chunks of red-hued radish pickle. Of course, the grilled meats are good too.

Thursday, May 13, 2010 - The terrines and pates are served too fridge-cold, but once they warm up a little, what a treat. A small board gives you a big taste of chicken liver, foie gras, duck, beef cheek and lots of other bold flavours combined in many mouthwatering ways...Coq au vin was a very superior version, the red wine sauce reduced to almost syrup consistency, the meat tender...The 'Frenchie' burger used beef chopped on the premises, almost rare and of sublime quality; under the brioche bun was also a wafer of pork belly and a slice of Morbier cheese, which gave the dish a not unpleasantly 'ripe' aroma.

Monday, May 10, 2010 - The farm may well supply many of the ingredients - presumably not the chorizo or chickpeas - but we're not convinced the kitchen makes best use of them. A Ruby Red (Devon beef) pie was no better than standard pub grub, and the meat filling meagre below the pastry. Beetroot-cured salmon was okay, though pricey at 7.50 for a small starter portion. The best dish was a starter of whitebait, as the fish were soft-boned, fresh and not oily, though the poached egg served with this dish was overcooked to hardness.

Monday, May 10, 2010 - Blandness seemed to be a keynote of many ingredients, from those used in a prawn and avocado cocktail 'with bloody mary sauce' to a 'mango salsa' accompanying a swordfish steak ciabatta. It was the simplest of dishes that were the best exectuted: beer-battered cod and chips with plump chips and mushy peas, and a sirloin steak, which was juicy and not overcooked. Puddings include include retro delights such as knickerbocker glory or crepes with banana and chocolate, both echoing the seaside theme of the interior. The well-heeled locals were lapping it up.

Monday, May 10, 2010 - The brief menu is modern without being slavish to fashion, and more Nigel than Jamie. A salad of lentils, spinach leaves, green beans, hazelnuts, roasted beetroot and feta perhaps had one ingredient too many, but the result was nonetheless pleasing and, at 7 quid for a generous portion, good value. The rest of the menu follows the simple-but-satisfying route: steak sandwich, lamb rump with rosti, grilled sea bream fillet with salsa verde and roast tomatoes...The real appeal of 8 Station Terrace is that it's affordable and has a good atmosphere, helped along by smiling but rather amateur service.

Friday, April 16, 2010 - The front of house staff are Italian. The design looks starkly but stylishly Italian, from the lustrous white chairs to the red glow of the Faema coffee machine. And, with echoes of the River Cafe, the food is more Italian in spirit than some of the food you find in Italy...A starter of 'speck with pigeon crostini' comprised soft folds of the lightly smoked ham, with the minced pigeon spread like a tapenade over rounds of toasted ciabatta. Pasta is of course made on the premises, and although our pappardelle was slightly overcooked beyond al dente, the flavoursome ragu had meat - pigeon, veal, guinea fowl - in distinct chunks.

Wednesday, March 17, 2010 - Throughout the whole meal we were torn between thinking: This is great food, and checking our arms and legs were not going to be removed on departure to settle the bill. Chicken kiev was fried, spry, crisp and dry, the meat favourful and the buttery centre boasted with wild garlic (16.75). A tiny side dish the size of an ashtray contained steamed spinach for a rapacious 3.95...Hix in Soho remains Mark Hix's flagship restaurant. In contrast, this store-hours brasserie is very much the diffusion line - the T-shirt bearing the logo, rather than then tailor-made suit.

Thursday, February 25, 2010 - A starter of seekh kebab was the best dish, worthy of a passable Punjabi restaurant: herby, juicy, fresh. It was served on a bed of rocket, which was also the backdrop to a starter of diced mango and sauteed king prawns, a flavour combination that worked surprisingly well. Lamb biryani was correctly served with a raita, and tasted rich and spice-imbued, just like the real thing. Perhaps the least visually appealing dish we tried was the fish and chips, chunks of monkfish deep-fried in an indelicate batter. Desserts included a chocolate Bailey's cream cup. Service throughout was a smiling shambles.

Wednesday, February 10, 2010 - Manson is that rare thing in London: a place where the sophistication of the food easily outstrips its casual, bistro-style setting...The fish and meat cookery was flawless. Rump of lamb was perfectly pink, yet tender, served on a black slate with garnishes evocative of Morocco – some chick peas, plus a samosa-like pastry with a lamb confit filling. Braised ox cheeks were surrounded by herby green risotto and jus, with flavours that brought to mind the countryside.

Wednesday, February 10, 2010 - Bear's paw tofu' comprised of thin slices of pan-fried beancurd mixed with slivers of velvety pork. The sauce was pleasingly slithery with a moderately hot and savoury effect on the palate, with just a hint of ginger and shards of spring onion; the puckered appearance of the tofu lends the dish the 'bear's paw' name, while black fungus (cloud ear mushrooms) adds both contrast of colour and texture. An excellent dish. Bitter melon had been cut into celery-like moon-shaped slivers, then dry-fried until tender; the bitterness of the gourd was not unpleasant once tempered by the wok. Another winner.

Wednesday, January 27, 2010 - There are no 'Masterchef' touches on this menu - it's simple caff food....The Mediterranean slant to the menu is balanced by British classics. The scotch egg revival has become an epidemic across London. The quartered scotch egg served here might not be star material, but it's a decent one, with good quality pork encasing the egg. Puddings are the sort nanny might approve of, such as apple crumble with custard. Our treacle tart with clotted cream was a good version, though the portion size was small; in fact, all the portion sizes were on the small side. Order accordingly.

Wednesday, January 20, 2010 - Our nigiri-zushi were cooked and pressed to the right consistency, though slightly more vinegar would have brought out the rice flavour. An udon dish featuring peanuts and sesame oil should, we thought, pep up the palate a bit, but even in this dish the dominant flavour was the soft, thick wheat noodles, plus some seaweed...Itadaki Zen is affordable, purely vegan, and has many commendable ideas behind it. It's a nice, calm space for a simple lunch or dinner. But the cooking, like the concept behind it, needs to taken with a pinch of salt.

Wednesday, January 13, 2010 - A cut of beef flank was cooked so dry and tough it was the consistency of rope, and therefore remained barely touched on the plate. Better was the beef flank on the bone, which although well-cooked, was nothing extraordinary. Maybe they were still getting to grips with this new asado...Empanadas had good, crumbly pastry and simple fillings, but came with no salsa accompaniment. Black pudding was the tastiest dish, though again was just that - a sausage-sized pudding on a plate, moist and well-flavoured, with no accompaniments, salad or garnishes.

Thursday, January 07, 2010 - Highlights of the procession of small dishes included creamy houmous topped with broad beans and sprinkled with sumac; a warm salad of grilled aubergine, smoky from the char-grill; kisir, the salad of fresh parsley chopped with tomatoes, crushed wheat, onion, olive oil and lemon juice; and boreks, deep-fried pastries filled with cheese. Zingy, fresh flavours typified the dishes, and a light hand was used on the deep-fat fryer. The Turkish grill is much in use in the evenings, with a varied assortment of lamb and chicken kebabs being ferried to the tables by the sweet Turkish staff.

Thursday, January 07, 2010 - A popular Cantonese ingredient, stone fish, is used in a classic Sichuan dish called shui zhu yu ('water-cooked fish'), where trim fillets are served in hot oil, flavoured with hot red chillies and the numbing flavour of Sichuan pepper. Dong po pork is still the best I've had: the fatty pork belly is first pan-fried then 'red-cooked' (slowly braised in a dark soy sauce); the fat becomes the texture of set custard, but imbued with rich soy, ginger and garlic flavours, and headily aromatic.

Wednesday, December 23, 2009 - Slow-cooked lamb shoulder read like a Moorish dish on a bed of couscous, but it was more French in style, topped with a high mound of aubergine puree, and surrounded by a moat of sauce that was so over-reduced and salty it almost tasted like Marmite. John Dory was another odd dish. The fish was wonderfully fresh and firm but it had been cooked sous-vide - that is, vacuum-packed in a hot water bath, not unlike 1970s boil-in-the-bag meals...Cooking and service both clearly have ambition, but need a lot more refinement for the prices charged.

Wednesday, December 23, 2009 - The shortcrust pastry base is firm and shaped into a traditional tapered oval pie dish made of foil, the lid made from puff pastry. The pastries of my game pie were both excellent, but the game filling - venison, pheasant, and wood pigeon - was blander than expected. The accompanying jug of viscous red wine sauce made up for this shortcoming though, and the grainy-textured mash was appealing. Prices ramp up if you have room for pudding - a bowl of apple and berry crumble costs 4.50. Spotted dick was magnificent though - proud, firm and steaming, in a pool of pale vanilla custard. Wonderful.

Friday, December 04, 2009 - Mennula means almond in the Sicilian dialect, and Busciglio's home village is in the island's almond-growing area. But his style of cooking is much more contemporary and refined than Sicilian home cooking...The menu's clearly laid out and reassuringly brief; fancy plates pretty-up the more rustic dishes, such as scored then grilled squid served in a soup-like sauce of leek, potato and olive oil with a little thyme, given distinctively Italian notes by a scoop of black olive paste and capers. Some dishes are more Brit-Italian in style, such as a perfectly cooked round of pork belly.

Thursday, November 26, 2009 - The three-storey height, vaulted ceilings, arched windows, stone columns and chandeliers were built to awe. And it still does...Both dishes from the a la carte were good, though not sensational. The prix fixe, in contrast, was a far better deal on our visit. For 24.50, you'll get three courses such as a starter of red mullet, escabeched with a dressing of a carrot and onion stew, but tasting of the vinegar dressing, saffron and a squeeze of lemon...

Thursday, November 19, 2009 - Many dishes are served thali-style, in stainless steel trays with recessed compartments to contain the sauces. We relished our sambar - a slightly tart soup of lentils, the traditional accompaniment to many South Indian dishes, including dosas (thin pancakes)...the filling of the masala dosa was nearly all potato, coloured red, and we'd have liked to have seen more onions and greater variety of spice in the filling. But the lassis were excellent: a rich mango, and a pleasingly thick and sour plain lassi accented with cumin. Take note that no alcohol is served, or permitted.

Wednesday, November 18, 2009 - Top billing goes to the cured meats, with a plate of jamon iberico de bellota. Cut to the thickness of pencil shavings, this cured pata negra ham had concentrated flavour, and was curiously gamy. Back on more familiar territory are dishes such as char-grilled baby leeks with romesco sauce, and Padron peppers...Furnished with wooden furniture and lots of bare surfaces, Barrica's not the place for a quiet meal; but if you like great Spanish wines and good food, add this one to your hit-list.

Wednesday, November 18, 2009 - The starter of caramelised salsify with scallops and wild mushrooms was cooked a point, and the presentation exquisite; the concentrated flavour of the salsify contrasting with the subtlety of the scallops...Main courses show equal finesse, such as cider-braised pork belly, cooked to moist tenderness but with strips of crackling which were crisp and pleasingly chewy; the plate was colourfully decorated with a puree of this, a splash of that, in the southern French way. Pub lamb is too often flaccid and overcooked. Not here, where it was medium-rare, and served with flageolet beans and a thyme-infused jus.

Wednesday, November 11, 2009 - The big draw at this basement bar is its excellent range of German beers - seven on draught, plus more than a score by the bottle - and the attractive vaulted basement rooms, evocative of real Bavarian beer halls...Our starter sausage platter had chipolata-sized bangers that were shrivelled and dry through overcooking, and the sauerkraut had an unattractive orange hue and flaccid texture. Kasseler - salted and smoked pork chop - also suffered from being overcooked to dryness.

Thursday, October 29, 2009 - The interior of Aqua Kyoto has a gaudy, five-star hotel look, not at all like fine dining restaurants in Japan. A sushi counter sits sunken in the middle of the room, like the captain's bridge in the Starship Enterprise. I visited at lunch. It serves only set lunches that are fair value, and well-prepared by the Japanese chef - a mixed bento box, plus the inevitable black cod with miso. They'd pass muster in Japan - hardly surprising, as chef Shibuya Kenichi has only been outside of Japan for a matter of weeks.

Wednesday, October 28, 2009 - These days, it's rare to find Tayyabs without a queue on any evening of the week. It throngs with post-prayer Muslims, boisterous groups of suits, and young and trendy members of the East End's latest wave of immigrants. The food (and its low prices) remains the main draw - we've enjoyed mild dhals with baby aubergines, sweet and puffy peshwari naan, succulent, herby seekh kebabs and, of course, the dish that crowds flock from miles around to try - the famous barbecued tandoori lamb chops.

Thursday, October 22, 2009 - There's a recognisable Italian-American slant to many of the dishes, which is hardly surprising when you remember that Soho House has a branch in New York, and quite a few of the staff are American. Clam pizza is a speciality of New England, and we were pleased to find that ours was not smeared in tomato sauce - in Italian cooking, mixing seafood and tomato is a no-no. Instead, our pizza was 'white', garnished with cherry tomatoes, garlic and pecorino. The base was thin, but puffed up around the edges from the heat of the gas-fired ovens (they also burn a few logs to add an appealing aroma).

Thursday, October 22, 2009 - The British and seasonal mantra has become something of a cliche in London gastropubs of late, except that Mark Hix does it far better than most, and has been doing it for longer...There's plenty to amuse and interest on the daily-changing menu. Cod's tongues with girolles were cooked perfectly, the tongue firm but tender, the girolles more yielding, the flavours an unlikely match. Likewise, partridge is served as shredded meat on toast, with piquant elderberries and slivers of water celery.

Wednesday, October 14, 2009 - Aqua Nueva is spacious, comfortable, attractively lit and decorated with woodturner's offcuts turned into hanging screens. One side is designated a 'tapas bar', and serves a fairly conventional list of tiny dishes. The dining room proper has a more adventurous menu...A fillet of hake was nicely cooked and topped with some chewy bits of squid, but the 'salsa verde' described on the menu was as clear and salty as seawater. Oxtail was the best dish, a neat block of the flesh marinated then slow-cooked, simply served with some nouvelle-style carved vegetables. But our dessert was a car crash of flavours...

Thursday, October 01, 2009 - Walk past the bar into the dining room, which has changed little since the days when it was bar-brasserie Ditto. It's worth it, because the cooking here is currently the best in Wandsworth Town...The parmesan pancake was more like a souffle, delicate in texture but imbued with deep flavours from the aged cheese and sauteed wild mushrooms, topped with some wild rocket. Another winner was a fillet of hake, served on an appetising bed of baby artichokes, cherry tomatoes and a herby olive oil dressing.

Thursday, October 01, 2009 - It's a grand Victorian building, with many original features, including a solid darkwood bar dominating the drinking area at the front. Wooden panelling, saloon lights, velvet bar stools and autumnal colours give it a cosy feel...Every dish on the daily-changing menu sounds like the sort of thing a good contemporary home cook would relish making. Chef Simon Phelan used to work at Flaneur...Main courses included a shoulder of lamb with roast potatoes - this had deep, savoury flavours.

Thursday, October 01, 2009 - Sitting in Polpo, a charming new bacaro (Venetian-style wine bar), you can recognise influences from both Venice and London, interestingly combined...Some of the dishes are classically Venetian, such as a cichete (Venetian bar snack) of a disc of grilled polenta topped with a scoop of moist salt cod. Others are more creative, such as slivers of cuttlefish, cooked in their black ink in the Venetian way and but embroidered with gremolata, the zest of lemon and a kiss of garlic and parsley make the dish glow like Merchant of Venice's treasure.

Wednesday, September 30, 2009 - In the evenings the French Cafe becomes a full-blown bistro for the more affluent Totterdown and Heaver Estate folk. The prix fixe is a major draw, with two courses for less than a tenner...The sauteed chicken liver salad on our visit was beautifully cooked, with top quality frisee leaves beneath. A duck liver parfait with toasted bread and pear chutney was also good. A Toulouse-style cassoulet was also a faithful version, with soft white beans and various pieces of pork including rich chunks of sausage.

Wednesday, September 30, 2009 - Pix claims inspiration from the pintxo bars of northern Spain, but the food just wasn't up to scratch on our visit. The slices of baguette that formed the base of many items were too thick, and neither crisply toasted nor fresh enough; they tasted as if they were going stale. The snacks were designed to look good - fried quail eggs, tiny slices of black pudding, air-dried ham - but just didn't deliver in flavour. A shot glass of tomato juice was watery, and not the intensely flavoured version that more talented chefs can create; it looked the part, but missed the point.

Thursday, September 24, 2009 - Was it worth the wait? There's currently only one chook dish on the menu - chicken paillard. This is chicken that looks as if it's been run over by a steamroller, then flipped on to a barbie. It was a tasty free-range bird, juicy and simply served with buttered baby leeks. Most of the menu is even simpler than this, but the dishes we tried were all good. A large bowl of battered deep-fried whitebait was crisp and dry, served with rich mayonnaise, malty brown bread and half a lemon wrapped in muslin...

Thursday, September 24, 2009 - This new Japanese-run cafe-bar has an extensive list of shochu cocktails, Japanese whiskies, sakes and plum wine besides the expected Asahi lager. But it's the bar food which is most impressive, as it's excellent value...our salmon teriyaki was excellent: a fillet of good-quality fish, basted with a light soy sauce enriched with mirin (a sweet cooking liquid), sake and sugar, plus some perfectly cooked rice. Side dishes include agedofu (thick chunks of deep-fried tofu) and 'inside-out' sushi rolls.

Thursday, September 24, 2009 - Chef Tonzanu is Sardininan; so are most of Tenore's staff. Ingredients and dishes from their native island feature prominently on this menu...Fregola is a Sardinian speciality, an oversized couscous that betrays Sardinia's close historical links to north Africa. Tenore's fregola is cooked with a mussel and clam broth and topped with prawn and langoustine. The pizzas are stone baked, with a good, crisp crust and wafer-thin and topped with high-quality ingredients.

Wednesday, September 16, 2009 - The room's small and conspiratorially low-lit; the menu's a mish-mash of retro dinner party dishes and comfort food. Sausage and mash comprised dense, meaty bangers flavoured with garlic and fennel, with a caraway-flavoured mustard. A slightly more challenging test for the kitchen was a tart of Gruyere cheese with caramelised onion, which had good, thin pastry. A pork chop was nicely cooked, served with clams and bacon; the accompanying cube of dauphinoise potatoes was nicely pert...

Thursday, September 10, 2009 - Chef Tia Patty (Aunt Patty) is from Tabasco, and her cooking is quite sophisticated for a small kitchen. One of the day's specials was sopes, which are small fried corn-dough bowls, filled with beans and in this case topped with chicken, braised pork or mushrooms with sauteed mild chillies. Masa, or maize flour, is also fashioned into tacos such as the fish-filled versions you find in Veracruz on the Gulf coast, though in this case they use sauteed sea bass. Coarser corn meal can be cooked as corn mash (polenta), then served with bacon-thin strips of grilled pork tenderloin...

Thursday, September 03, 2009 - The best dish was the New York Strip - an American cut, but in this case made from 28-day dry-aged beef which was very tender and flavoursome, and cooked medium rare as requested. Twenty-four pounds is a lot to pay for a steak and some shoestring fries, but we couldn't fault the quality of the meat or the timing of the grill chef...Not many people were taking advantage of the list of classic cocktails and the wine service needs a lot more training but Lower East is redeemed by being in a lovely riverside spot, which is perfect when the weather's good

Friday, August 28, 2009 - The menu's a mix of English pub grub and US shopping mall favourites, from burgers or meatballs to chocolate brownies. These would have been fine at half the price, but our shepherd's pie resembled a ready meal, and the ground lamb base was dry and insipid. Worse still was a New York Strip steak. A 10oz piece of meat that was tough and not especially flavoursome...If you're looking for a New York-style dining experience, you'll be sorely disappointed.

Wednesday, August 12, 2009 - The food here's unusual, very well-made, and - I imagine - what good Georgian home cooking must be like...The main courses are the highlights of Tamada's menu, but the starters are good too. Many of them are familiar from Mediterranean and Black Sea cuisines - meze, stuffed aubergines, blinis and borscht - but khachapuri bread is distinctively Georgian. It's a freshly-made flatbread filled with melted cheese...Very good and interesting food - but patience is required.

Friday, July 24, 2009 - Having eaten in a few Martin Bros places, I'm seeing a pattern. Seamless cooking, great attention to detail, exquisite presentation...Although a gastropub, this is still a boozer with a bar built for drinking, a few real ales and a commendable selection of wines by the glass. And if bending your elbow with a pint isn't exercise enough, there's a billiards room on the first floor...Our French waitress was as charming as could be. If only all neighbourhood gastropubs were this good.

Friday, July 24, 2009 - Chef Ben Bishop is keen on good provenance (he's ex-Duke of Cambridge), and the meats used are from non-intensive farming. The bread was certainly own-made (and good too). Puddings include a strawberry eton mess, and a vanilla, Earl Grey and prune creme brulee...The bar snacks are excellent too. Our French neighbour even shared his delicious snails and slow-cooked sweet, tender garlic, he was so enthusiastic about them; we'd already scoffed our dishes by that stage, so were unable to reciprocate.

Friday, July 17, 2009 - The future of the British seafood restaurant may look a lot like Coast. Fish conspicuously absent from the menu are the premium, expensive species that were once the centrepiece of any good fish restaurant. 'We're trying to go down the sustainable route,' founder David Upton told me...we chose the sardines, splayed, deboned and grilled, served with pesto and microgreens; a good starter. Information about the environmental consequences of eating tiger prawns is complex and conflicting, but what I can tell you for certain is that served with aioli, the plump ones served here tasted of ocean, with an appealing firm bite.

Friday, July 10, 2009 - The bar's the first space you enter. It's buzzy, loud even, and filled with off-duty lawyers and bankers. The barmen make good cocktails, and there's a chap manning a charcuterie counter in case you fancy some nibbles...To head up the kitchen, Lutyens has recruited a safe pair of hands in David Burke, once of Pont de la Tour. The cooking's bedded in classical French dishes, with a few nods to Burke's Irish heritage. A starter of lobster mousse looked, and tasted, like something from a bygone age, but was beautifully made.

Friday, July 10, 2009 - More's a little place, quite loud with shouty City types, and also sweltering on the warm evening we visited...The open kitchen was a flurry of activity led by head chef Beatrice Ferrante. Sitting at the bar is a great spectator activity, especially with such visually arresting dishes. One starter resembled a variation on bouillabaisse, a seafood stock with wine strongly flavoured with saffron that contained baby squid, shards of fennel and cut leeks...With jolly staff and a feelgood buzz, we wanted more of More.

Friday, July 10, 2009 - You can sit inside surrounded by modern art, but the grounds outside - littered with portable tables until 6pm, if the weather's fair - can be a more attractive option in the summer...The lunch and dinner menu includes the expected salads, pastas and burger, but the day's specials are far more ambitious. Steamed salmon was served up in a yellow 'curry' broth that tasted like 1970s kedgeree; a playfully-flavoured dish, with the fish nicely cooked. For dessert, the knickerbocker glory was a triumph.

Wednesday, July 01, 2009 - The interior of this London outpost is intended to evoke New York high society in Palm's heyday, with its caricatures of 'celebrity' customers on the walls, plus classic, solidly-made fixtures and fittings...So does perfect cooking justify the high pricing? Our 'medium rare' fillet (which should be very pink in the centre, brown towards the edges) was actually cooked 'medium well' - not pink at all. Was it particularly tasty? Fillet is tender, but rarely the tastiest cut - especially if cooked too much, as this was.

Saturday, May 30, 2009 - If you’re dining, the first floor is much quieter but still has its own bar and an identical, monthly-changing menu. The dishes are British-based (potted ham shoulder, oysters), plus pub favourites (toad in the hole, burger, Caesar salad). But our new season lamb was tough, either as a result of poor quality meat or unsuitable cooking; we couldn’t tell. Much better was an African-inspired steamed bean pudding, shaped like a flan but flavoured with tomato sauce and palm oil. Both these dishes were a bit pricey for the standard of cooking, at £14.50 and £11 respectively.

Tuesday, May 26, 2009 - Eastside Inn’s fortunes will be inexorably tied to the fortunes of the City. Yet this new, high-profile launch seems to be hedging its bets both ways by opening as fancy fine dining restaurant on one side, but also as a more affordable contemporary bistro, just in case the hoped-for big spenders don’t come… We can’t really quibble with chef-proprietor Bjorn van der Horst’s cooking, but how many people are prepared to pay £70 per head or more for a three-hour dinner in a restaurant which only opens five days a week. Five years ago Eastside Inn might have been on-message, but they’ve picked an unlucky year to cash in on the City.

Tuesday, May 26, 2009 - Ah, the joys of a good neighbourhood trattoria. Chiselled waiters in trembling black trousers; cheerful banter among the staff; a manager who could do a cameo in ‘The Sopranos’. Il Baretto has the the sort of comfortable, low-lit interior that makes you want to uncork a Super Tuscan, buy an olive grove and start driving around on a Vespa…Penne with tomato and spicy Italian sausage is a simple dish to create at home, except here they’re using proper nduja sausage from Calabria. It’s a soft, spicy meat which can be spread like a pâté; or in this case, mixed into the tomato sauce to give it real kick.

Thursday, May 21, 2009 - The Nosh Bar was a Soho institution in the postwar years, much as Bar Italia became in more recent decades; the location and late opening ensured a stream of thesps and bohos. The food was secondary, mainly home-style London-Jewish snacks such as salt beef on rye, chicken soup and filled bagels. The original Nosh Bar closed in the 19080s, but new owners have recreated it in the same location. It's much smarter than the original, but prices are still low, the food's decent and the staff are friendly.

Thursday, May 21, 2009 - This airy, high-ceilinged Georgian building in a quiet, leafy street has been simply renovated with a bare-boards, clean, austere look…The menu is firmly contemporary British, neatly matching the no-nonsense aesthetics of the pub’s refit. Devilled duck hearts on toast, ox tongue and lardy cake all make appearances, though it was the angels on horseback that tickled our fancy: dates (or prunes) that are wrapped in bacon then grilled, a ’70s dinner party favourite. Our prunes were stuffed with whole almonds, not the classic raw oyster centre, but were good nonetheless. Other dishes didn’t quite live up to expectations.

Thursday, May 21, 2009 - Culinary adventurers will be thrilled by the variety of dishes, all at low prices… On the menu you’ll find lots of Turkish dishes plus some standard Russian food; skip all these for the Central Asian specialities. These delicacies include plov, similar to pilau or pilaf rice dishes; Indian or Turkish-style flatbreads and kebabs; and steamed dumplings (manti), which you find all the way from Poland to Japan in various guises. Lagman is a bowl of hand-stretched wheat noodles, topped with stir-fried fat-tailed sheep and vegetables that you also find in Xinjiang (‘New territory’), in what is now China.

Tuesday, May 12, 2009 - Mark Fuller’s places tend to land just the right side of tacky because he manages to create great food in his restaurants, the most notable being Embassy. No. 20’s menu isn’t at the exalted level of Embassy, but it’s mostly good. We were impressed by a fricassée-style dish of rose veal, perfectly tender and served with baby vegetables; and a starter of pressed ham hock was also well-made. A pudding of ‘blueberry pie’ (actually a tart) had wafer-thin pastry and stole the show.

Wednesday, May 06, 2009 - This delightful shop and café chain looks set to do for Lebanese food what Carluccio’s Caffès did for Italian – give it ‘affordable chic’ cachet… If you’re looking for something more substantial there are main courses of (Maghrebi) tagine, lamb kofta, moussaka. But it would take us a lot of visits to tire of the meze dishes and the pastries, and that’s before starting on the rosewater and strawberry tart. With such an appealing look and dishes, this growing chain should do well in London’s affluent shopping districts, with Lebanese and others alike.

Wednesday, May 06, 2009 - Swan & Edgar is tucked down a quiet residential backstreet in Marylebone. Yet it’s easy to spot because of the outdoor tables and long, filled bookshelf fixed a few feet over the entrance. Inside, the bar’s constructed of old paperbacks, candles burn on the small tables… The single-sheet menu comprises classic pub dishes from a scotch egg through a good-looking cheeseboard to bread and butter pudding with custard. Our roasted cod was two generous portions laid over crushed new potatoes, with a light cream and mustard sauce, at £9.

Thursday, April 30, 2009 - Gastropubs and Fulham go together like deck shoes and chinos. But there’s always room for one more, especially if it’s as likeable as the Salisbury. This corner site’s been lavishly done up, and is now spacious with lots of natural light, aided by a massive new skylight over the dining area…The Salisbury’s food is decent rather than great, but the place works well as a sophisticated pub.

Thursday, April 23, 2009 - This new steakhouse is already proving a hit with besuited City diners, and no wonder. High Timber’s menu is simple to the point of being dull, but that makes choosing easier; conducting business over a challenging, fiddly meal is never a good idea anyway. Smiling service and well-spaced tables help things run smoothly. And, as a bonus, diners get a view of the Globe, Tate Modern and Millennium Bridge if they sit next to the window.

Thursday, April 23, 2009 - The food’s decent, as long as you’re happy with burgers, chicken caesar salad, and other crowd-pleasing dishes that wouldn’t look out of place in an Italian-American diner, or even a shopping mall in the US… Jamie’s Italian tries to be to restaurants what Gap is to fashion – sensible, fair value, risk-averse, lower- to mid-range. This suburban branch appears to be coining it as a result. But if you want proper Italian food and hospitality, look elsewhere.

Thursday, April 16, 2009 - This big old Wandsworth pub, just over the tracks from Clapham Junction station, used to be called the Freemasons and in recent years was a decent enough gastropub. Now, new owners have taken it over, and changed not very much… the atmosphere’s friendly and busy, and our Hungarian waiter was charming. The menu now comprises simple pub food, and on the basis of our meal, the simpler the dish you order here the less there is to go wrong.

Thursday, April 16, 2009 - This Clerkenwell café, opened in autumn 2008, is housed in a former Victorian workshop used for cutting diamonds. As you’d expect it has lots of natural lighting, and the high ceilings, bare brick walls and large windows give it a surprisingly cosy feel… The two young sisters who run this café use good produce to great effect in simple, home-style dishes. A chicken and vegetable soup is their grandmother’s recipe, and it’s rich and full-flavoured; a steak sandwich, the meat cooked rare, had all the right details with it, from a mustard and mayo dressing to ripe cherry tomatoes.

Tuesday, April 07, 2009 - Soju - named after the distilled Korean spirit - is comparatively tucked away, but seems constantly busy with Korean diners. All the classic dishes are there, from bibimbap - rice, vegetables and meat with a raw egg dropped on top - to some excellent kimchi (pickled vegetables) and namul (vegetable appetisers). Meats can be grilled in table-top barbecues, in the Korean way. The set lunches are good value, but choose carefully in the evening as menu becomes more extensive and fancier dishes are added.

Tuesday, March 31, 2009 - Double Club’s an unlikely hit. It serves ‘French and Congolese’ food, and is a ‘temporary’ restaurant – which sets me thinking of food stalls at festivals. Yet the bar’s packed every night, and the wait for a dinner table is longer than an MP's expenses claim form – table turning every two hours has become the norm. So why is it so instantly popular? The secret is that Double Club has attained that elusive quality – cool.

Tuesday, March 24, 2009 - The menu's is no-fuss. Pork belly, although slow-roasted, isn't disintegrating in the way that some versions can be; this one's a solid block of prime pork, set on a sauce of creamed leeks, but with a moat of cider sauce and roasted apple on the side. Simply cooked fish is a strength of the kitchen: maybe pan-fried sardines as a starter, or a special of sea bass with some mediterranean vegetables. Good produce, simply prepared…For decent British grub at a fair price, Brill fits the bill.

Tuesday, March 24, 2009 - Nude Espresso has a Kiwi owner and is staffed by a bunch of Aussies… I’d rate the flat white here near-perfect, but there’s more to going Nude than that. Italian breads such as focaccia are filled with simple but good fillings like salamis and salads. The breads and pastries are bought in, but the cakes and even the chutneys are made on the premises… Just as importantly, Nude Espresso has a good vibe. It’s simply but tastefully decorated,with good-looking furniture and fresh flowers on the tables; mellow music sets the mood, and many of our fellow visitors were using the free wi-fi to surf on their iBooks.

Thursday, March 19, 2009 - Royal Wok’s not a theme restaurant, but it is one of a small number of eateries serving Dongbei dishes outside China. It even has a proper Dongbei chef, from Shenyang in Liaoning province. (Another Dongbei chef works at Gourmet San – also on Bethnal Green Road). But it doesn't just serve a few Dongbei dishes – it serves lots of seldom-seen mainland Chinese dishes, Dongbei and otherwise. The dishes we ordered represent the kind of cooking which is trendy in mainland China right now, and are all very different from the Cantonese dishes that dominate the UK.

Thursday, March 05, 2009 - The Queen Adelaide is one of those swaggeringly confident Victorians you’ll find in the London suburbs, a Grade II-listed pub on a former stagecoach route...The menu lists the kind of British-leaning gastropub fare you find everywhere right now, and is none the worse for it. Lamb rump was the best dish – a good, fist-sized piece of lamb, charred on the outside and nicely rare inside, very well flavoured, and served with mash, roast veg and a red wine sauce.

Thursday, February 26, 2009 - Things start well: our friendly waitress is from São Paulo, and many of the other customers are Brazilian; it has a very casual feel. My caipirinha cocktail’s well-made, and service remarkably efficient by Brazilian standards…The buffet’s a simple selection of the expected farofa, crisp manioc chips, and various so-what international salads; plus a vat of bean stew...But then the meats arrive. A cut of beef ‘like a filet mignon’, we’re told, is the high point, perfectly tender yet quite rare on the inside. Pork sausage is meat-packed, and strongly flavoured with herbs.

Tuesday, February 24, 2009 - What you won’t find in São Paolo though is a restaurant like Sushinho. In looks, it’s a very Chelsea take on fantasy Orientalism: dark wood, screens of bamboo poles, clean lines, clever lighting. Black-clad waiting staff walk by carrying trays of artfully-arranged sushi… The owners have stuck together Japanese food and Brazilian bar culture as a marriage of convenience, but to our amazement, the food here is remarkably good. Just don’t expect it to be Brazilian, or Japanese.

Thursday, February 19, 2009 - At The Commander, the steak - which costs £39.50 per kilo - was tender and flavoursome, the portion to price disparity partly explained by the addition of three grilled prawns and what the menu described as a peri-peri sauce (actually too tame in heat and too sweet to earn the name). But this still doesn’t explain the £3 for a cup of chips, or £3.50 for a side salad…The Commander's not without its saving graces though – the friendly atmosphere make it a great place to pop in for a glass of wine.

Thursday, February 12, 2009 - This ‘corner tavern’ is in reality a full-blown fine dining restaurant from restaurateur Claudio Pulze, who has been responsible for creating more good restaurants in London’s than Terence Conran and Gordon Ramsay put together. Chef Michele Brogi's starters are a clue of what’s to come: pretty, carefully-presented dishes using simple but good ingredients.

Thursday, February 05, 2009 - Now, Battersea’s Lola Rojo has been trumped – by its new branch. The menu is near-identical to the original run by chef Antonio Belles and his wife, Cristina Garcia. But Lola Rojo II is spacious and far less frenetic, quiet even. The room’s a beauty too, with its umbelliferous wallpaper and shocks of red colour (plates, chairs) like an Almodóvar set.

Thursday, January 08, 2009 - On paper, it sounds good: a wine bar set up by ‘ex-Harrods catering’ friends, with a proper Enomatic wine-preservation machine to keep wines sold by the glass in tip-top condition. Yet the reality was disappointing. The Wine Theatre occupies the corner of a Travelodge near Southwark tube station, and barely raises itself beyond the expectations created by such a low-budget location. From 5pm to 8pm there’s a buffet deal – you can get a glass of wine, then help yourself to ‘aperitivo’ from the buffet, all for £8…

Thursday, October 16, 2008 - The Royal Institution has been championing science for more than two hundred years…The building's new £12 million refurb is as aesthetically discordant as a physics teacher's tie collection. Bright lighting, blood red chandeliers and plate glass walls clash with walls lined with bound copies of old science journals; a dark carpet in the dining room swallows light like a black hole. The café serves the usual pre-fab snacks and drinks...The dining room was a quiet as an anechoic chamber on our evening visit, with only one other table occupied.

Thursday, October 09, 2008 - Past the chichi deli which sells Italian-accented stuff for rich folk – a window-dressing exercise, with only token amounts of fresh wild mushrooms – is the main dining room. Angela Hartnett oversees the whole operation, but it’s chef Colin Buchan handling the Modern European menu.

Thursday, September 25, 2008 - No Thai restaurant is complete without a portrait of the king, but Rosa's has a picture of The King. Elvis Presley met King Bhumipol and Queen Sirikit of Thailand while filming 'GI Blues', and a portrait in the window proudly commemorates the event. It is just one sign that Rosa's is a refreshing departure from the norm.

Wednesday, September 17, 2008 - Andaman is a collaboration between the St James's Hotel and Club, which has just reopened after an 18-month refurbishment with rooms costing from £200 per night; and chef Dieter Müller, who holds three Michelin stars for his restaurant Schlosshotel Lerbach in Germany...

Thursday, September 04, 2008 - This restaurant was hugger-mugger with Hartnett groupies, restaurant critics, PRs and food bloggers on our visit – and such is its instant popularity, we were lucky to be slotted into the only spare table they could find in Murano’s opening week. The reason? Angela Hartnett is behind it, and behind her is Gordon Ramsay’s PR machine.

Thursday, August 21, 2008 - Next street over is the relative safety of traffic-choked Denmark Street. This is where you’ll find the Giaconda Dining Room, which, with its black frontage, at first appears fittingly goth. But through the French windows and slatted blinds you might spot the wine rack that covers the rear wall, which already makes a statement about the ambition of this tiny, but smartly dressed dining room.

Thursday, July 31, 2008 - Recession my arse, I thought, gazing around the dining room. Large, important-looking men in dark suits seemed as comfortable as if they were in their own living rooms, the sort who clearly think nothing of spending three figures on dinner. Each. For this is The Connaught hotel (est 1897) – still the grande dame of London hotels, one of the last bastions of the bourgeoisie and still a place where they like things done properly and hang the cost.

Thursday, July 24, 2008 - Multi-starred French chef tires of cooking for provincial bumpkins, moves to London in pursuit of new challenges, and finds the reception mixed rather than rapturous. Sounds familiar? L’Ambassade is not the first of its kind, and is probably not the last.

Tuesday, July 01, 2008 - This corner pub was given a facelift by the new owners at the end of 2007. It's now light-filled, with cream-coloured walls, old oak floorboards, candles on the tables and blackboard menus.

Thursday, May 22, 2008 - ‘The sucker table’, columnist and restaurant critic Jan Moir calls it. It’s the table where they put the losers, the nobodies, the ugly people, or the people who aren’t brassy enough to insist on somewhere better to sit. Like Jan, I’ve experienced more than my share of sucker tables, as you do when you visit a couple of hundred new restaurants every year, and do so anonymously. And the sucker table is where we were seated, behind the pillar at the top of the stairs.

Wednesday, December 12, 2007 - I suspect Sake no hana is one of those places you either love with a passion, or utterly fail to comprehend. It is definitely a place for people who adore Japanese food, and like eating and drinking outside their comfort zone.

Wednesday, November 28, 2007 - There is much to enjoy about Alain Ducasse at The Dorchester: attentive, friendly service; perfectly-executed cooking; a room that allows you to talk quietly and still be heard. Most, if not all, of our fellow customers appeared to be business diners, blending into the beige background. But it's the greedy pricing that ultimately spoils what would otherwise be a good meal out.