Marina O'Loughlin reviews

Wednesday, November 19, 2008 - Whatever: this is a restaurant that amply deserves its booked-out longevity. Not only does it serve some of the capital's most consistently ravishing food but it has spawned a generation of influential chefs – among them Theo Randall, Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall and, of course, St Jamie. It's no exaggeration to contend that owners Ruth Rogers and Rose Gray dramatically changed the way Britain eats or, at least, thinks about eating while tucking into its M&S ready meal.

Tuesday, November 11, 2008 - It's a pastiche of one of the Parisian über-brasseries: a Terminus Nord, say, or Coupole. They've had a brave stab but it's never going to amount to more than a homage to the real thing…But the menu is terrific: a kind of brasserie Platonic ideal ranging from breakfast croissants and something that looks suspiciously like a full English to snacks such as croque monsieur to full fruits de mer blowouts.

Tuesday, October 14, 2008 - With the exception of a wonderfully retro seafood cocktail and a gorgeous custard tart – thick layer of creamy-dreamy custard on crisp pastry base, bathed in butterscotch sauce and crowned with a surreal flourish of improbably long and thin Garibaldi biscuit – almost everything we eat at St Pancras Grand is disappointing.

Tuesday, October 07, 2008 - Soseki, twinkling seductively under the lowering armpit of the Gherkin, is perfectly lovely, one of the most beautiful new restaurants I've visited in a long time. Like many restaurants in Tokyo or Kyoto, it looks very much like any old faceless modern block from the outside but climb the open-tread stairs and you'll find magic.

Tuesday, September 30, 2008 - There's a new, intriguing flavour in Chinatown: Taiwanese. Dark, moody, weapon-draped Leong's Legend offers a terrific blast of the unfamiliar: oyster omelette, say – a Taipei night-market hawker staple. Frilly-egg edges are smoky from the wok, briny oysters sticky with cornflour, green flecks of chopped crown daisy (a kind of edible chrysanthemum) and a slick of sweetish red sauce on top ('What is it?' we ask. 'Hot sauce! Spicy sauce!' is the barked reply.)

Tuesday, September 23, 2008 - Benito's Hat – it's named after extravagantly titfered Mexican national hero Benito Juárez – is the baby of Ben Fordham, whose burrito epiphany came in Texas, not California, an enthusiasm that took him as far as cooking school in Oaxaca. He's a dedicated chap, tracking down a 'fantastic' supplier of fresh chillies in Bedfordshire who grows not only habaneros, jalapenos and serranos but also the tomatillos needed for a salsa verde with depth and tang.

Tuesday, September 23, 2008 - At first, walking past Chez Georges, I mistook it for a kebab shop – all steel cooking equipment and no tables. Then I spotted one table. Then I wondered why it was always empty. Mystery solved: the restaurant proper is downstairs…

Tuesday, September 16, 2008 - We are eating some extraordinary things. Oysters tasting like concentrated essence of the sea in a profoundly savoury black jelly; on top is an earthy, subtle velouté of white haricot beans crowned with salty jet pearls of Aquitaine caviar...

Tuesday, September 16, 2008 - Bar Shu shook up the taste buds of adventurous London food lovers when it landed, with its fiery-and-numbing Sichuan flavours, hotpots and acres of offal. The owners now bring us this low-key little joint concentrating on the street food of Beijing and the Sichuan capital, Chengdu.

Tuesday, September 09, 2008 - I remember 12 Temple Place when it was called Jaan and I was more easily impressed. ('Everything about it whispers illicit affairs like fingers snaking up a silk stocking.' I blush and apologise). The layout has changed very little; the blocky room looking out on to a rain-strafed courtyard can't absorb more than a cosmetic tart-up.

Tuesday, August 19, 2008 - Our meal at L'Ambassade de l'Ile costs about £320. For two. With one half bottle of wine (we ask the sommelier to recommend something affordable and get a mini Gevrey Chambertin at £55; affordable by whom, exactly? Paris Hilton?) and a couple of glasses of Gaillac.

Tuesday, August 12, 2008 - But all I'm feeling is poshed up, simple (good) food served in brittle, beautiful surroundings to people in suits spending vast amounts of other people's money. See: told you I didn't understand the City. And I've managed to get through this entire review without mentioning the credit crunch once.

Tuesday, July 29, 2008 - The look of Jom Makan ('Let's Eat') is determinedly mid-market. Only rather odd staff uniforms, based on traditional Malaysian dress, give any indication of what kind of food is on offer.

Tuesday, June 10, 2008 - I feel bad. There was Big Sweary Gordon in our 60 Second Interview slot on Monday, congratulating me for giving restaurants a chance to settle down before haring in, in a desperate bid for the scoop. And here I am in Quo Vadis which opened, erm, a week ago.

Wednesday, December 12, 2007 - Here, we seem to like our high-end stuff to come with more 'gosh-how-did-they-do-that?' rigmarole. But, with the exception of the odd, rogue, ponzu sighting, this offers the most traditional and efficient French haute cuisine; it's not where to come if you want your palate goggled by cod skin crisps.

Wednesday, November 14, 2007 - The four stars for L'Autre Pied are because, foodwise, it gets nearly everything right. Within its own ambitions. It's not setting out to be haute cuisine – that arena it leaves to older sibling, two-Michelin-starred Pied à Terre – but what it does, it does bloody well.

Wednesday, June 06, 2007 - Most unusually, I'm spotted as we leave. Nicolas asks archly if they can expect a review soon. Embarrassment makes me attempt to gently cuff him in an 'oh, you…' kind of way. Instead, I give him an inadvertent biff like a clumsily skittish Little Britain lay-dee, and his expression as he reels across the room will live with me for some time. I can only apologise. But I reckon as far as the battering my wallet takes, now we're even.