Zoe Williams reviews

Sunday, January 29, 2012 - There followed roasted Sika deer and smoked mash with the deepest, most delicious slick of gravy and a dainty sprig of wood sorrel. The deer was the colour of a ruby and melted away like chocolate, but my favourite bit was the smoked potato; I swear once you have fallen in love with this all other spuds, indeed carbohydrates, taste black and white to its glorious technicolour...It's quite fussy but, for the fuss, OK value. I personally would come back for the smoked potato, but that's just me.

Sunday, January 22, 2012 - In no particular order, here are some properties of steak that I believe make it tastier: feeding the beast on grass, rather than the ridiculous American tendency to use corn from a profit-motive then have the brass neck to show off about it; leaving the bone in; dry-ageing. This scored on all three, and as a consequence was so delicious and tender that I nearly finished the thing, despite its being as large as my face...I don't want to sound coarse by banging on, but this certainly isn't a budget choice: however, it was indulgent, nostalgic and exciting, like lying on a rug made of a tiger. I loved it.

Sunday, January 15, 2012 - I won the main course, with my confit duck over red cabbage, celeriac and chestnuts. If I can just bang on for a bit about the vegetables underneath: the celeriac was in dainty chunks, beautifully braised with the chestnuts, and made a bit fancier with a beautiful, creamy puree of celeriac and Jerusalem artichoke. Some almost-but-not-quite-pickled red cabbage cut through its richness and spread the palette of tastes still wider. This isn't to denigrate the duck, however, which was gorgeously crisp on the outside, yielding on the inside, intense and gamey but not oppressively so...I observe, furthermore, that the modest prices are piquantly juxtaposed against polished and often ambitious cooking. I like it here.

Sunday, January 01, 2012 - My beef goulash with egg noodles (teeny things that looked like tortellini, but were solid noodle) was lovely; exceedingly tender, richly beefy, it melted away as if desperate to be eaten. There was a gherkin, too, which reinforced my view that there's almost no meal that isn't improved by a gherkin...I'm loth to criticise this place, even though bits of it are idiosyncratic. It seems the accent is on authenticity rather than adapting the food for a mainstream British palate, and that's fine. I will probably stick to the sausages in the future. I do not consider this a hardship.

Sunday, December 18, 2011 - My foie gras was delicious. So stylish, square and perfect to look at, it was like something beyond food; it was Hollywood food. The flavour was subtle but complicated – a flank of sweetness, a flank of depth. The caper-crusted rack of lamb came with a neck curry, so naturally I had that because it seemed so subversive; there's 'fusion' and there's 'having two meals at once'. I loved both. The rack was pink, piquant with capers but with a gorgeous, soft flavour beneath...Nevertheless, my abiding feeling is that you'd expect nothing less from a restaurant at this price, and you could get just as much quality and far more excitement from an enthusiastic gastropub.

Sunday, December 11, 2011 - I carried on with the queen scallops with chorizo crumbs, and here the luxury completely overtook the pleasure. They came in their shells, swimming in butter. The diddy scallops had been a bit overcooked...But then I had some broccoli on the side, which was beyond perfect - it had bite but it wasn't chewy, it was spritzed with lemon but tasted of nothing so much as a garden in spring. And B's cavolo nero, with a judicious scattering of parmesan and pine nuts, was just as good...It's pricey and it's a bit mixed, and if you get it right it's wonderful, and even if not, it's fine.

Sunday, December 04, 2011 - Main courses felt less timid, but I think this was because there is not much you can do to dial down the porkiness of a rack of pork, for instance. That was mine - rack of pork with lentils, smoked sausage that was very classy and tasted like cotechino, and horseradish, which was fresh and fiery. The cut was particularly gorgeous, the balance of fat and flesh just right, the bone-in cooking preventing pork's infamous dryness. R had the roast lamb rump with gratin potatoes, swiss chard and rosemary and, again, because the dish was conceptually such a classic, nobody felt abashed about ramping up its impact; the flavours were wonderful, the lamb was sweet but had depth, the chard was mustardy and in-your-face vegetal, the whole thing was lovely.

Sunday, November 27, 2011 - I made J have the oxtail and rib cottage pie, because it's not often you find an oxtail in a pie, let alone a rib (such a pest to have to prise the bone out); he didn't regret it, or at least he didn't admit to regretting it. It was extremely rich; they're both so close to the bone, these cuts, they ascend to heights of meatiness that a mere steak could only dream of...We had some honey-roast quince on the side; it was unusual and savoury, with a grainy texture (I would normally mean that as an insult, but here it was lovely).

Sunday, November 13, 2011 - Pig and eel are a natural fit for one another, their hardy, complicated flavours jousting gracefully, while their robust textures had been softened by the process of turning them into an attractive, jellied terrine. The corn was intensely sweet and the mustard was just intense...I was fascinated, dazzled sometimes, although I didn't love everything I ate, any more than you could love everything you saw in a Gerhard Richter retrospective. So perhaps that's what I mean by food as art: it was sometimes confusing, sometimes awe-inspiring, but never anything so base as 'enjoyable'.

Sunday, November 06, 2011 - I then had the fritto misto with preserved lemons in batter, and this replicated the same trick. It took a very simple idea - 'find some nice seafood and fry it in batter, preferably in small pieces' - and did it tremendously well and a little bit differently...T had lamb cutlets with marjoram and salmoriglio which, if you're wondering, is a southern Italian condiment of lemon juice, olive oil, garlic, oregano and parsley. I know! Who'd have thought they had a word for that, when it's what they put on everything? But vocabulary carping aside, this was just fantastic - beautiful meat, with very pure, simple, harmonious flavours.

Sunday, October 16, 2011 - I had the roast baby chicken royale, which was marinated in honey, five-spice and dried Vietnamese herbs, but to such discreet effect that it could have been rubbed in butter. Or maybe that's not entirely fair: I could certainly taste the five-spice, but the overall effect was, to borrow a technical term from the Americans, 'meh'...It wasn't a disgrace; it's not an unattractive place and I'm sure careful ordering could yield something more eventful. But I can think of 10 better ways to sate an appetite in Dean Street alone.

Sunday, October 09, 2011 - I had the pork tonnato with julienned courgette and carrot, mainly because it's normally made with veal, and I wanted to see how it worked: well-ish. If you're used to the dish arriving as thin, dainty slices of cold meat and a tuna mayonnaise, it would come as a surprise to meet a stubby cut of hot, roast pork loin with a rustic tuna sauce. A surprise, but not a disappointment, it was juicy and meaty, and that visionary Italian meat/fish pairing was as magical with pork as it is with veal. I want to say the puddings were OK, but in fact they were awful. They were bad enough as to be amusing.

Sunday, October 02, 2011 - A USDA prime rib-eye, with bone marrow on the top, was so good that, as I started to chew the first mouthful, I had to put down my knife and fork; it seemed disrespectful, to something so delicious, to be multi-tasking. A side of spinach with an egg on top was described as 'creamed' and, boy, was it creamy. I love a fat masquerading as a vegetable...Much was good and the excellent bits were off the scale. If you're a carnivore in its true sense - genuinely not interested in foods that aren't meat - then you'll love it.

Sunday, August 14, 2011 - Of the two fish dishes, the octopus was superior. It arrived underneath some minced kohlrabi, with some more judiciously applied fennel, and the whole thing... seriously, I can't even explain the perfection. Something to do with the chewiness of the octopus, set against the near-puree of the kohlrabi, both flavours distinctive but self-effacing - as an ensemble it was glorious. Sea trout with citrus fruits and wood sorrel was pretty good, but not as much of an event...I'm not in love with this place - it's a bit too neat and careful - but I was charmed by it.

Sunday, July 03, 2011 - E had the squid with Jersey Royals and fennel, which arrived on a beautiful slick of emerald olive oil and black squid ink, mingling to look like a highly specialist marble. Beautiful. The spuds were golden and lovely. The fennel, E said, was so intense that perhaps it was braised in fennel juice? Injected with fennel? Something of that order...Stand back and admire the prices, would you? The value isn't really the point, but, on top of the excellence, it is a kind of wizardry.

Sunday, June 19, 2011 - The squid was excellent, with a wonderful fresh texture that banished any sense-memory of rubberiness. The chickpeas seemed smaller than usual and tastier. And of course it's always fun when food is black - who could not enjoy that?...A side of panzanella had some of the most beautiful purple heritage tomatoes I've ever seen. J found the sourdough too chewy, but I think she was just being a philistine. If only we hadn't gone for farmhouse cheddar grits at the last minute, the meal would have been chic and delicious; instead, it was chic and delicious, with one disgusting thing.

Sunday, June 12, 2011 - K carried on with the Gloucester Old Spot chop with chard and mustard, and I loved this. The chard had been chopped very small and braised in an intensely mustardy gravy, which played to the chop's strengths (its porkiness) and covered its weaknesses (it wasn't the moistest meat experience). K was less keen on it than I, and a much bigger fan of mine: a piece of hake surrounded by brown shrimps and a burnt-butter sauce. I didn't enjoy this enormously...We can all pick up any old fruit or vegetable that looks but doesn't taste like itself. This place is a bit complacent.

Sunday, June 05, 2011 - My sister had the medium-hot chicken-breast wrap and, again, it bore the hallmarks of a kitchen that does nothing but chicken, that knows the bird inside out, that hasn't dried out a bit of poultry since a freak lapse of concentration in 1995. It was just right - perfectly moist, the flavour never buried by the sauce, and the sauce a good texture...We spent 20 quid a head, but we selflessly ate as much as we humanly could, and we had a pint. I think, nearly 20 years in, it's still got it.

Sunday, May 29, 2011 - We fell into the gentle rhythm of being unmaddened but not minding: the barbecued mackerel was surrounded by twiddly bits - a cucumber chutney, some frozen ajo blanco, a scallop - but failed to lift the spirits. The slightly virginal theme of the accompaniments, which I suppose was intended as a counterpoint to this oily, macho fish, served rather to underline how unexciting it was...It turns out the site used to be a Pitcher & Piano, which explains the atmosphere. The food is more exciting to look at than to eat.

Sunday, April 10, 2011 - My anchoiade and radish was a near-unimprovable bar snack: fresh, classy, healthy but buttery, classic but modish, and I didn't even end up smelling of garlic...H's cod was exquisite, very simply done in a buttery sauce, as fresh as anything and beautifully white and thick and luxurious. However, I envied her not, on account of my incredible choucroute...What's good here is far better than the less-good things are bad. It's fun and simple and enjoyable, and I'd come again in a flash.

Sunday, March 27, 2011 - After about 20 minutes I noticed I was fighting the urge to wrestle waiters to the ground and steal what they were trying to deliver to other people. I wasn't even that hungry, but the mini foie gras and pork burger, in particular, along with a lamb and kidney kebab looked almost supernaturally appetising...There was so much going on in every mouthful, and all the flavours were so individual, so characterful, it was like a hip-hop dance-off. Made of food. The salt-marsh lamb with pumpkin gnocchi arrived, and made me regret not ordering more from the meat section. The leg meat was pink, tender and excellent.

Sunday, March 20, 2011 - C had the beef royal, a short rib of Angus, slow-cooked for 72 hours, and this was awe-inspiring. Imagine the depth and dimension of a stew, with the glamour, the pinkness, the satisfying chew of a rare-ish fillet steak. An amazing dish, whose oxtail, anchovy and onion accessories only underlined how perfect it was...You couldn't feel let down here because it is simply too good, but you might feel - as I did - the lack of a wow moment. Heston's been hotelled as surely as the hotel has been Blumenthalled.

Sunday, March 06, 2011 - F had the curried butternut squash soup, which was very charming, had a sweet, honeyed top note, quite a serious curry hit, a very smooth, silky texture, an elegant drib of posh, very green olive oil and a lot of dimension...Asian-style pork belly was brilliant. It was a huge great slab, I guess to make sure people got enough, even those who wouldn't eat the fat. I will eat the fat - that's the main reason I order it - so of course I ate way too much. A ginger and sesame slaw underneath was excellent and balanced the richness of the meat with an exotic, explosive crunch and lightness.

Monday, February 14, 2011 - I effectively chose the same thing twice: scallop and prawn-cake claypot. This was fascinating - the seafood had all been drenched in seasoned flour, then fried, so that there was something cakey about them, underpinned by very fresh, distinctive flavours. I also had the garlic shoots. I don't want to call them eye-wateringly expensive lest I ruin the magical atmosphere, but a tenner for a side dish is something you don't come across very often. C had the black-truffle roast duck, which was the man of the match: the truffle was married to a sweetish, five-spice undertone to create something truly unusual and memorably good.

Monday, February 07, 2011 - Kopapa is not a very inviting space, with its clackety encaustic tiles and hard, stout chairs. It has the perfect atmosphere for a modish business lunch...The lentil fritters in themselves had enough flavour to impress but then there was fried plantain, an effervescent coriander and papaya salad, a clay-coloured but delicious coconut mulch. There was so much going on, and it was all so harmonious but so self-sufficient...It's too patchy to recommend with confidence, but there are impressive elements.

Monday, January 31, 2011 - The lobster wasn't cooked, but nor was it served raw with any flourish, as a ceviche; it was simply translucent, at blood temperature, as though recently slain in a warm sea. It was quite avant-garde, but I hope I'm not making it sound appetising. I had the ox cheeks with pear, Jerusalem artichoke and endive. Two thirds of it was spectacular...If you're a true food experientialist, you'll find enough here to like or, failing that, divert. But if you're just a Joe looking for dinner, think carefully.

Monday, January 24, 2011 - This meat was incredible. I've talked of little else since. The flavour was symphonic - deep but heathery, succulent but dense, totally gorgeous. I had marrow and shallot sauce, and this was an eye-opener as well, fetching in more tones of sheepiness. Am I banging on? I know I am. It was just so delicious. J had the liver, a meat that could have been designed for the charcoal treatment, which chars the outside neatly and doesn't dent the peachy wobble of the middle. Some thyme-roasted vegetables tasted very country-house, hearty and unpretentious.

Monday, January 03, 2011 - I had the Leon Gobi, which I wolfed. It sounds so unindulgent - sweet potato, cauliflower and coconut milk - but it was unputdownable...I take the healthy schtick with a pinch of heart-disease, sorry, salt. The main cause of over-eating, in my life at least, is things being delicious. So Leon isn't healthy for me at all. But its other goal - a new standard of excellence in fast food - it achieves effortlessly. Convenience usually tastes of compromise; here it doesn't. It's a bit of a revolution, brown rice notwithstanding.

Monday, December 20, 2010 - I carried on with the iron-pot black cod rice, and everything about this was great. The rice was sticky with gorgeous burnt bits at the bottom, and the egg, cod and spring onion all chimed in with different intensity and texture. C's sukiyaki rib of beef was unexceptional...The devil's in the ordering, basically. I would vouch with my whole heart for the sushi and sashimi. The charcoal-grill dishes looked and smelt wonderful from afar. The black pots are a little bit unpredictable.

Monday, December 13, 2010 - T had the home-made ricotta ravioli, in which the stuffing was fantastic, but the pasta was undercooked around the edges. The sea bass was too salty and a bit tough and the skin hadn't been entirely removed, which made things tougher still...I wanted to say this place is what the phrase 'hit and miss' was invented for, but, after surveying the evidence, it was more like 'miss, hit, hit'. You might get lucky and skip the miss altogether. But it's rather full of itself. I didn't warm to it.

Monday, December 06, 2010 - P was late enough for me to sneak in some lamb samosas before he arrived and these wowed me. Crisp, golden, insanely attractive, they were everything that fast food wishes it could be but almost never is. The seasoning was just right - hot but not fierce...Only a vegetarian or a sadist would ever be unkind about chicken tikka, but this was particularly crowd-pleasing, with a young succulence and restrained spicing. I didn't go crazy for the roti (a bit tasteless, like diet food), but I did for the naan.

Monday, November 29, 2010 - T had the cod on salsify, which was braised and buttery and pretty nice, with a broth of clams, and they were good, too. The fish itself, though, was disappointing; the flesh crumbled in dry shreds rather than flaking silkily... had the osso bucco of pork, with girolles and thyme jus. It's typically veal, this dish, though apparently it can be any cut with a hollowed-out bone. Pork shanks are smallish and nobbly; they lack the grace and drama of veal but they do work. It was a simple dish, a bit Marmitey, more salt than depth, but the mushrooms balanced it out...The funny thing is, I quite like the place, and think it's good value.

Monday, November 22, 2010 - I had the lamb gigot steak, which is a bone-in cut from the dead centre of the thigh, large but stylish, a little bit different and incredibly delicious. Deeper in flavour than a rack, with none of the prissiness and all of the class. On the side were some flageolet beans, cooked in a dash of cream, with some more vivid parsley. It couldn't have been better...In an off mood I might find the atmosphere a bit mannered, a bit themey. But seriously, some (though not all) of the dishes are so good, in such a French way it's almost impossible to believe you're not in Paris. It's more than a restaurant; it's a minibreak.

Monday, November 15, 2010 - D then went for the NY steak, which looks, and I grant is, expensive, but the price tag is mitigated somewhat by the fact that it was enormous. It looked like a sofa made of meat. It came with the marrow, which was delicious, a heap of polenta, and a pepper sauce, in which the flavours and the cream hadn't cooked into one another enough, which left it a bit too creamy...There is obviously expertise in the kitchen. And if it's anything like the front-of-house manpower, there's a proliferation of it, all milling about deliberately. But it feels a bit passionless and corporate.

Monday, November 08, 2010 - The fritters themselves were amusing, since I cannot envisage a lower ratio of crab meat to batter, but only the most uptight, looking-for-insult diner would ever mind, since the batter was nicer than almost anything you could ever taste. It was chivey with the faintest tang of cayenne, a beautiful deep golden colour, and a great texture - squidgy but light...The mussels were small, with cracked, uneven shells, such as a supermarket would probably toss out with the misshapen carrots. Imagine my surprise, then (you can see where this is going), when they tasted incredible.

Monday, October 25, 2010 - I had the samundari ratan, a seafood stew comprising scallop, king prawn, stone bass and squid, with an ingredients list that somewhat misleadingly stressed the cinnamon and cloves. In fact, the chilli was so assertively the point of the sauce that the ancillary spices didn't kick in till a few hours later. I still loved it, though...K's biryani smelled incredible when the sealed lid came off, and it took me a while to work out why: there seemed to be a sweet, almost floral whiff coming off it. The lamb was so good, the clay-pot handling made it so intense, that you could smell the sweetness of its little Welsh field.

Monday, October 11, 2010 - I started with the crab salad with celeriac and apple. It was tasty, sure and delicate, the pastel colours making an effortlessly pretty plate. But it was also heartening, since it looked like simple, intuitive French cooking...Because C had the steak, which was perfect on every level, from the sourcing to the butchering to the cooking - probably the beast's very behaviour in life had been unimpeachable - I blundered adventurously into a pig's trotter. I know, I know, if you're going to embrace French cooking, you can't cherry-pick the croissants and gag at the andouillettes. However, this was one for the hardcore.

Monday, September 27, 2010 - I went for the roast pork loin with Swiss chard and mustard sauce. The mustard was muted but all the more appealing for it. The Swiss chard had been very finely diced and cooked in so much delicious fat that it had technically ceased to be a vegetable, but I mean that in the most admiring way possible. The pork was just so perfectly Italian - braised, naturally, so bursting with moisture and flavour and possibility...This is a gorgeous date-night restaurant - smart, delicious, Italian down to every minute particular, and reasonably priced enough that you won't be expected to do anything crazy, like propose.

Monday, September 13, 2010 - I had the pan-fried pollack fillet, with chilli butter and samphire. This was a treat, actually. It was perfect - crisp skin, the flesh cooked just past the point of translucence. The samphire was tasty. I finished with the knickerbocker glory. It was the kind of thing you'd see on telly when you were little, and wish you lived in America. I don't know if I loved it, or whether I was just having a kind of nostalgic reverie. M had a bowl of cherries, which were fine.

Monday, August 23, 2010 - Prawns, sauteed with spinach, with a herby onion and coriander curry were a disaster. The curry was thin, red and aggressive, differing from E's starter sauce only in colour. E said it was hot, but had no warmth...I did even worse, with the Old Delhi-style poussin - a spring chicken with ground coriander and roasted cumin, in a ginger-scented gravy that tasted mainly, confusingly, of Bovril. The chicken managed to be quite dry, despite its generous sousing in a gravy that was, again, strangely thin.

Monday, August 23, 2010 - The dining-room is the colour of a Weimaraner and has a courtly feel, with very well-spaced tables populated by strangers...I had the veal loin, with sweetbread, spring vegetables and wild garlic. That was a bit more eventful, especially the sweetbread, which seemed, in its ebullient texture, to be bursting with pride. The loin wasn't dry, exactly, but it was a bit of an effort. And finally some picture-perfect puds to seal the atmosphere of a slightly alienating perfectionism.

Monday, August 09, 2010 - Amico Bio is a charming idea, in a charming building, in a charming, higgledy-piggledy Smithfield street, and the service is lovely, and the atmosphere is sweet and the food is just awful...My aubergine arrived. It had been scored, roasted with rosemary and garlic, and served with a red-onion and tomato salad. The salad totally obliterated the aubergine; not from any conceivable angle could you call these flavours complementary. You just had to eat them separately. B's pasta was eliche giganti (imagine posh fusilli) with mushroom and beetroot). It was a lively colour all right, but the taste was bland.

Monday, August 02, 2010 - For sheer beauty, J's sea trout was the star. It came with tiny whole braised beetroots round the edge, and when she'd finished on the taste (delicate, earthy, slightly sweet, very unusual) she started on the aesthetics (coral against deep pink - it's an enticing look). I had the saddle of Welsh lamb with an elegant caponata underneath (cut up terrifically small, not a whisper of its peasant roots) and a thyme and lamb reduction. The lamb itself was very excellent, herby and rich with a flash of Welsh sweetness.

Monday, July 26, 2010 - P had the chicken supreme, which was the breast including the wing. You can stuff it with anything; this one was perked up by olives and goat's cheese, but it wasn't perked up enough. It was rather pale and, again, very weddingy: it couldn't possibly upset anyone or frighten children. The look of the thing made me feel a bit tired... I want to say something hopeful and a bit meaningless, like, perhaps this place will grow into itself. At the moment, though, it isn't trying hard enough.

Monday, July 05, 2010 - The menu reads like a dream, literally, something your subconscious might wish. There is a whole course just of sausages. I started with the petit aioli, so beautiful I wish I'd taken a picture of it...A continued with a magnificent burger. I guess it was about 6in tall, but not absurdly large in diameter. It was a 'Frenchie', so had Morbier cheese and confit pork belly as well as the beef patty, but it wasn't even the accessories that made it. Rather, the beef had a wonderful tenderness and made a delicious, full-frontal attack that wasn't just a heap of salt.

Monday, June 28, 2010 - My beloved started with the pan-fried mackerel fillet with tomato chutney and nicoise salad. The fillet was fine - it had a crispy skin, but the filleting was incomplete and some remnants of gristly spine dented the romance a little. I had the pressed foie gras with confit and smoked duck, about which I would say it is in the nature of foie gras to be delicious...So far, if you were served food like this by a friend, in a regular house, you'd be a bit sheepish that they'd made such an effort, but you wouldn't be dazzled.

Monday, June 07, 2010 - My companion started with the crayfish cocktail, and said kindly, 'It's a little bit cold.' Well, yes, that was the start of the problem. Add 'It didn't taste of anything' and you have a dish that might as well have been prawns, or indeed ocean sticks...I had the asparagus panna cotta with asparagus tips and a crispy-bacon dressing, mainly because it sounded so strange. It worked beautifully. I think I actually prefer asparagus in set-mousse form than as the vegetable itself. It was a stylish and tasty notion, though not one that would make you leap from your seat and halloo the chef.

Monday, May 31, 2010 - The first actual course was a squid carpaccio with ink granita. The squid looked like one complete piece, but was in fact a mosaic of quarter-centimetre squares. Effort on this scale makes me nervous. The granita occupied a no-man's land I have never set foot on, between sweet and savoury...You can do many things to this food - appreciate it, experience it, surrender to it. You wouldn't just eat it and enjoy it while talking about something else. I'll leave you to decide whether that's a good thing or a bad thing.

Monday, May 24, 2010 - I had a rabbit stew. It flaked off the bone exquisitely, the meat was refined but full of depth, the soffritto foundations were so neatly chopped it looked as if they'd unearthed some miniature celery...Trish Hilferty, the chef, is from the original gastropub, the Eagle, I realise. You could say she started the run of excellence. She certainly knows what the expectations would be of a newcomer, and surpasses them in unusual ways. Like the Eagle, it will very soon be one of those places that everyone has been to.

Friday, April 16, 2010 - I started with the guinea fowl boudin blanc with ham, peas and barley. The sausage was so good it momentarily put me off all other sausages. Pale, subtly gamey, a very attractive brown on the outside, this defied expectations, particularly since I'd got it mixed up with an andouillette and was waiting dismally for some intestines. B had the winter-spiced salmon tartare with cracked wheat which, on that description, could have been almost anything. In fact, it was beautiful - dainty cubes of salmon about the size of the pomegranate seeds that artfully bedecked them.

Tuesday, April 13, 2010 - The pancakes were a bit bland. The courgettes with red pepper and a roast-onion sauce were better, but still lacked the punch of street food, for my money. Some tiger prawns in piri-piri sauce came with a bean-curd and corn salad. It sounds a bit special interest, but actually the salad was very pleasing, sort of likeable, unflappable, more of a canvas than a proper taste, for the moderately spicy, extremely juicy prawns...In the end I couldn't pick out one colony from another in any of these dishes; the flavours were cacophonous. It's tasty enough, but it doesn't live up to its own interior.

Friday, February 19, 2010 - For pud we shared the Jerusalem artichoke cheesecake. It was incredible from top to bottom: the crunchy biscuit base was profoundly delicious, as if Tuley had reinvented not just the cheesecake genre but also the digestive biscuit. The filling had a wonderful consistency and, a lemony side-taste notwithstanding, tasted very distinctly of artichoke...By the end I totally loved it in there. And, three days on, I have considered the gastropub prices for the quite superior cooking, and I love it yet more.

Friday, February 12, 2010 - M had the Dorset crab mayonnaise, which was delicate and highly Ivy-ish, extremely simple, you could close your eyes and think you were at the Ivy. B had a twice-baked smoked haddock souffle, and this was spectacular: the souffle was light but tasted like serious business, a powerful, substantial, delicious dish...We all shared a very attractive apple pie with a dollop of ice cream on the top. What can I say? I want to be different and complain about everything, but this is exceptionally well done.

Friday, February 05, 2010 - A celeriac and apple soup with chestnut chunks arrived in small Kilner jars, stylish, lemony and buttery. It was nice, but it struck me that 45 quid for four courses was steep, when one course couldn't have cost more than 25p to make. Am I being mean? We did get a lot of art, gratis. There arrived some lamb loin, very pink and inviting, soft, extremely edible. The gravy was cocoa, though the evidence of this was mainly in a sprinkling...It's not great, in other words, but of course you don't go for the food.

Friday, January 15, 2010 - They stress the uniqueness of their dough, and I've got to give it to them - it is puffed up, golden, crispy to exactly the right degree, striking a perfect balance between squidgy and dry. I had the one with veal meatballs, cream, parsley and lemon...The meatballs were delicious. Veal is a very rewarding experience - serious but subtle, seasoned so beautifully here they should really make their own sausages. Cream, lemon, parsley - what's not to like? It was delicious but the tomato influence was much missed.

Friday, January 08, 2010 - I continued with the calf's liver, done in the 1980s fashion where you stack all the ingredients neatly into a tower, like you're playing a corporate Japanese team-game: mashed spuds (very good, pretty rustic, not overly buttery but certainly buttery enough); spinach (nice, ever so verdant and beefy, really halfway to curly kale, except not curly); liver (solid but not daunting, pink, tasting very much of itself, exquisite really); speck (arranged like bacon, traditional but with a twist, deeper and sweeter than bacon); and deep-fried sage like a savoury cherry on top.

Wednesday, December 23, 2009 - I had the veal cheek with a beautiful, incredibly French (read: more butter than potato) mash and a 'zingara' dressing, which is made of ham, tongue, mushrooms and truffles. You just had to prod the meat for it to deliquesce beautifully. The dish smelt incredibly, implausibly meaty...You simply could not inhabit a space this large and churchy without having a bit of ambition, a bit of hush around the food. I think it warrants it. Much of it is wonderful.

Friday, December 11, 2009 - The fritto misto was deep-fried squid, prawns and whitebait, all fresh and crispy, like a cross between a bar snack and - no, in honesty, it tasted like a bar snack. But what a bar. Mussels and clams were fat, juicy and complicated in the flavour and the eating, but worth it. My mind wasn't truly blown till the pork belly on radicchio and hazelnuts. I can't fathom the brilliance of this meat; it had the melting softness of a slow-cooked joint, with the punchy crispiness of a quick cook.

Friday, December 04, 2009 - I had the salt-cod fritters with pickled fennel and this charmed me utterly. The fritters had a beautiful, saffron-coloured crunchy outside, with a salty, street-foody fish inside...Mains were disappointing. I have a theory that they're so bowled over by their wood-roasting oven they have taken their eye off all the elements of cooking that aren't roasting...I liked the style and setting so much I didn't care about the main-course let-downs. So what if you didn't finish your vast chop? That's just less to swim off afterwards.

Friday, November 27, 2009 - He continued with the Aberdeenshire beef fillet on the bone. It was peerlessly juicy, and this was cooked medium-rare. Some chips were maybe too crunchy for some tastes. The show-stopper in this course was my veal sausage with creamed onions, which was juicy, complex, perfectly seasoned, herby but not overly so, cooked just past the point of pinkness (one of the many luxuries of not being pork), and even more succulent as a result...People are excited because it's exciting, in short. Hix delivers.

Friday, November 13, 2009 - The spicy chicken wings are amazing. I can't for all my life work out how, but they spatchcock these tiny cuts so they look like butterflies on a bone, and serve them salty and devilishly hot. The chorizo in wine is slightly curious in that the wine doesn't taste like a sauce; it just tastes like a glass of thin red thrown over the top of a sausage. But the sausage is improbably good; it is everything a chorizo should be, with a subtle tang and a welcoming, crumbly warmth.

Friday, October 02, 2009 - I had deep-fried mozzarella with anchovies and Pachino tomatoes. This was totally delicious, but I think would have gone down better, as a high-class experience, if it didn't so incredibly strongly resemble a toasted cheese sandwich... triumphed in my second course, with the warm veal with tuna-fish sauce and sweet-and-sour vegetables. That 'sweet and sour' referred to a sweet pickle, and the veg - teeny baby turnips and carrots - were eye-poppingly tangy and lovely. The meat was as smooth as velvet and - because it is true, not because I'm trying to tease out a theme - the tuna sauce glistened like silk.

Friday, September 25, 2009 - Pulpo a feira was so unbelievably, evocatively good that if you closed your eyes you would definitely be on holiday, thinking, 'Why do I never eat octopus? Why doesn't my octopus taste like this?'...A plate of Leon chorizo was everything you could have hoped for, exploding with flavour and juice. And the thread of excellence was continued with a beautiful shard of Monte Enebro cheese doused in orange-blossom honey and deep fried which extremely unusual treatment like an incredibly trendy crepe suzette.

Friday, August 28, 2009 - I moved on to the Dorset turbot, pan-fried with frog's legs and a caper and raisin puree. Ooh, those little legs, they are so tasty. The fish was spot on...C had the suckling pig, cooked for 24 hours, with chicory and pommes mousseline. He went mad for the mash, which was, in the classic French fashion, essentially just butter with the rumour of potato...This is a genuine, special-occasion, marry-me or at least birthday-with-a-zero restaurant. It astounds me how rarely in this foodie capital I think that.

Friday, August 21, 2009 - She continued with the warm Brookland Farm chicken salad with radicchio and sherry currant dressing, which description alone is far and away more than I would ever say about it. 'Lifeless' would be too strong a word, but it didn't have any lift...I had the steamed sea trout with champ and green-tomato chutney, and I was a lot keener on this. The fish was basically perfect - subtle, delicate, very pretty for what that's worth, and expertly handled. The champ was good too, and the chutney, on this outing, was exactly right, with tang, sweetness, range and complexity.

Friday, August 14, 2009 - The sides they advertise as 'family style for two or more', but I still thought steeply priced. The lobster was tender, but I could have done without the waiter's lecture on how tender and tasty it was about to be. The steak was also tender and, combined with the lobster on a forkful and doused in melted butter, unusually delicious. It filled me with a sense of plenty and entitlement. I'm not sure this was a good thing...It's not an outrage, but you'd need a good reason - profound homesickness, or some sort of obsessive disorder - to come here.

Friday, August 07, 2009 - Considering its slightly unforgiving interior, Gallery Mess has a very festive atmosphere, I must say...She had the beef carpaccio with something green, probably rocket, and something hard and scrapey, almost certainly parmesan. Nothing really tasted of itself. I suppose maybe the beef did its job, though it was buried under quite a truffly mayonnaise, but the rest was just texture. I had exactly the same problem with my crab linguine. I could see the crab but no way could I have closed my eyes and pictured it bursting fresh from the sea. It could have been anything.

Sunday, July 19, 2009 - J had the smoked-salmon blini, which was a beautiful great blousy pancake, flouncy like a garden rose, and very springy and toothsome. The fish had a deep, complex flavour, and the dill and onion melange dotted round the outside kept the richness in check. I had the lobster tortellini on a cauliflower puree with a lobster butter sauce. It was indeed buttery, but I wondered about the balance - everything in it was as rich as it could possibly be...My niggles are tiny, really: one or two of these plates would be marginally improved by a slightly less-is-more approach. Otherwise, it could not be more charming.

Friday, July 03, 2009 - I had the veal paillard. Again I thought the value was good, almost the most expensive thing on the menu. And it was lovely: pounded to supermodel proportions, seasoned perfectly, thrown flamboyantly on to the grill. It was everything that first distinguished and elevated Italian cooking, after we'd spent all those years slavering over French...A perfectly nice, mainly excellent value, genuine, delicious Italian restaurant, in the throbbing epicentre of London, where you'd most expect to be ripped off. OK, so not all of it made me want to stand up and cheer, but some of it did.

Friday, June 26, 2009 - I defy you to find three greener spears of asparagus. An egg yolk sat on top of a gloriously tarragonny mayonnaise. Chicken jus lent seriousness. Mine was less good. I had eel with spring peas and broad beans, and, while they were green too, somehow I was less impressed. The eel had been braised, and tasted a bit cheap...The puds were hilarious: I had a vacherin flambee, a snow-white orb of impossible perfection - until they poured cherry liqueur over it and set fire to it...It would be unfair to call it hit-and-miss: the hits are so much better than the misses are bad. But it's not quite there, yet.

Friday, June 05, 2009 - Almost all of central Birmingham looks just built to me, pre-crunch, swanky, but a bit sudden: Brindleyplace is exactly this, so I was not expecting the Edmunds interior, which is soft, muted, unflashy, subtly luxurious… My starter of salmon with oyster beignet, Cornish crab and avocado only reinforced the impression of tremendous effort and care. The avocado had been puréed and scraped across the plate like the plaster finish on a fancy ceiling. The salmon hovered between raw and cured, very yielding but still translucent – totally delicious.

Wednesday, May 27, 2009 - Baozi Inn shot to fame as London’s most authentic vendor of northern Chinese street food, including what must be the city’s cheapest bun. The eponymous baps come in two varieties (egg and spinach, and pork), for a teeny, McDonald’s-worthy £1.20 each. And they’re huge. And so fast – they arrive almost before you’ve sat down… It’s not a disaster, but it certainly doesn’t live up to Bar Shu, its posh sister from around the corner.

Wednesday, May 20, 2009 - Brompton Bar and Grill reminded me of what restaurateurs thought places ought to look like in the 1980s – Paris-via-Manhattan, with art-deco-ish hanging lamps, functional furniture and the endearing clatter of a lot of hard edges…Look, it’s fine. Nothing here would make me stamp my foot or bang my cutlery, and if it were in Cheadle it would probably already be in the top five. But these are hard times in a restaurant-heavy town, and I wonder if it has the oomph.

Tuesday, May 12, 2009 - T started with the frog’s legs, done the only way they can be, French-wise: garlic, butter, parsley, deliciousness, more garlic, oh my. They were meatier and less reptilian than I remember them – big frogs, I guess. I had the foie-gras terrine, which was a lovely velvety experience overall, though I don’t think it had a remarkable flavour…This all sounds underwhelming, but I did enjoy it, and my thoughts keep returning to the atmosphere of swank. Even the tardy service felt like part of Terence Conran’s grand design.

Thursday, May 07, 2009 - There is no hotel on earth that would waste a view like this on an ordinary guest. For the wow factor you have to have the duck. It was quite theatrical, watching it cut, though - finally, showmanship! I can't remember now why I was longing for it. The pancakes, though, served two ways, were amazing... With the rest of the duck, there were six options, including a soup; we chose to have it with ginger and spring onion. I must admit, we weren't adventurous, but I think our conservatism paid off. It was exquisite.

Wednesday, April 29, 2009 - You know immediately you’re in a superior kind of curry house because at lunchtime there is a business meeting occurring within two feet of you gassing to your friend…I’d call Indian Zing a find, but it has quite a pedigree. The chef, Manoj Vasaikar, has cooked in every classy Indian restaurant you could name, from Veeraswamy to Chutney Mary. He’s brilliant, and this unassuming place – unhurried and great value – is the perfect place to be quietly dazzled.

Monday, April 20, 2009 - The restaurant is brilliantly situated beneath modish offices and above a concert hall; the bar’s packed, and even the sleek, pointy modernism of the interior can’t puncture the fun….There was absolutely nothing offensive about any of it – just a minor mistake on many of the plates that made you want to roll your sleeves up and go backstage.

Friday, April 17, 2009 - The Piazza occupies the Corn Exchange in Leeds, a fantastical building of histrionic proportions. I have no idea how you would inject atmosphere into such a dome; it would take 50 years, or a chandelier the size of a car…While the problems were not major; almost everything fell one notch short of where it was aimed. I felt that it was a B+ meal, which could have been an A if we’d ordered differently. I don’t know who to feel sorry for – them or me.

Wednesday, April 08, 2009 - The prawn was butterflied and huge and about as tasty as they come at this size, but I could have taken more punch from the mustard. The bream knocked it out of the park. It was smothered in a thick mint, coriander and green-chilli masala paste and had maintained a lovely, moist, singular flavour inside it all…It’s true that some bits were better than others, and, ergo, it cannot all have been perfect. But I remember thinking, 'This is it. Easy and exciting, but sophisticated and eye-opening – this is what eating out should be like.’

Thursday, April 02, 2009 - Barny’s is a new burger joint in the fashionable Houndsditch area of London (like Shoreditch, only more poetic), run by Barny Stoppard, son of Tom…As a taste experience, it was between McDonald’s and Gourmet Burger Kitchen, but, for my money, way too close to the first and nothing like close enough to the second.

Tuesday, March 24, 2009 - I loved the interior – spacious, exotic, macho and classy, very carefully arranged but much too big to feel precious or oppressive… My roast lamb saddle, with mint-onion sauce and pilau rice (£18), was exquisite, a perfect pale pink, spiced subtly so that the meat’s young flavour was in plain evidence, nevertheless more exciting and varied than a straight roast… I will persist in loving the Cinnamon concept – dishes and combinations of flavours already much loved, twisted into greater and greater sophistication.

Wednesday, February 25, 2009 - Market's interior does not distinguish it from any mid-range trendy food-spot this side of 1993. Exposed brickwork, functional grey paint on the odd pillar and school-type wooden chairs do not heap luxury upon the atmosphere, but I don't mind that...I, boringly, had the cauliflower-cheese soup and it blew me away. The bass note was earthy and flavourful, without being arduously vegetative. Mustard and a quirky, tangy cheese fenced over who would dominate. But never mind all that, it was just so darned nice.

Tuesday, January 20, 2009 - I continued with the blackened cod (£17.90), which is famous among Tsunami-fanciers for its likeness to the Nobu version, but in truth I think once you know how to make this, everybody does it the same, and unless there’s something up with the fish it will always be delicious. R’s beef truffle (£18.50), a chargrilled, grain-fed rib-eye with exotic mushrooms and truffle sauce, was another story. I would do more than give it an award; I would have an award carved in the higgledy-piggledy shape of it.

Friday, January 16, 2009 - For a picture of Bocca di Lupo, imagine the layout of Bar Italia, then spruce it up wildly. Make it all pink, naturally; flatter-ise the lighting like crazy; keep the closely packed and highly lacquered tables, but put the accent on the 'posh canteen’ look. I’m sorry, I am (a) assuming a universal familiarity with a bar that is really only popular with people who are still in Soho, drunk, at four in the morning, and (b) giving no clue as to whether or not I like this look, or deride it. In fact, I liked it very much.

Tuesday, January 06, 2009 - You could be forgiven for thinking Goodman an American invention, with its – yes, I’m afraid, vulgar – emphasis on the exact grammage of each cut of meat but, in fact, it’s from Moscow (where there are nine branches). The interior is a bit fur-coat-no-knickers and there’s lots of very expensive dark wood everywhere, which looks like it’s been knocked up in a bit of a hurry and cost-cut on the finish. There’s a feeling of asymmetry and edges not meeting properly: it reminds me a bit of my house…

Friday, December 19, 2008 - Of the mains I can only tell you, first of all, how lucky you are that we limited ourselves to one each, since they were all enticing. If I’d had everything I wanted, I’d still be in there. I had the fillet of cod with olive-oil mash, ratatouille and oregano, which, again, reminded me of how French restaurants seemed when they were the only people on earth who knew how to cook – exquisite and dainty and slightly mysterious… This is a remarkable restaurant. It was a beacon back in the days when to be a decent restaurant, selling good food, was something quite exotic. It’s still a beacon now.

Thursday, November 13, 2008 - Hartnett has been put in charge of his new restaurant, Murano, which opened in August, and is a very pleasing space – it's classy, there's grey leather on the walls and you get told off if you play with the dangling crystal objets, though there isn't acres of space between tables.

Sunday, October 19, 2008 - The London Carriage Works is in an exceptionally lovely area of Liverpool - vast great Victorian industrialana converted into café'n'delicatessenerie on wide, peaceful streets, nothing so déclassé as a shop or a tramp. Charming service, lovely high ceilings, exposed brick, an informal sense of space: I had not put thing one in my mouth, and already I was recommending it for a large party. There's a sense of event, but no hint that you might be told off. Amazing how few places I could honestly say that about.

Sunday, October 05, 2008 - I was meeting my cousin J in Sheffield and it was perhaps the sixth and final day of summer, and the waiter at the Old Vicarage had put us in the window with a view on to some greenery and horses, and all was well with the world. This place screams 'wedding anniversary', only in a posh voice. And it's too genteel to scream. It's pretty chintzy, but welcoming and not prissy.

Sunday, September 28, 2008 - My Bristol friend, S, said she started off being infuriated that you could never get a table at Culinaria; then...finally, she reached a place of acceptance, deciding that the opening hours were like English wild strawberries - you didn't demand them, you just took them where you found them. That must be a pretty special restaurant, you might think, to warrant such yearning. Well, it is, but not to look at.

Sunday, September 21, 2008 - I honestly thought my mother had told me everything she knew, 18 or 19 times, but apparently not. Surveying the beige New Yorky interior of Aaya, she said it was a founding principle of interior design that you should have no working space above eye level. Who knew it had principles? But they work - the underlit, eye-height bar at Aaya sets a mood of graceful control...

Sunday, September 14, 2008 - Purnell's is an inviting space, named after its young chef-in-a-hurry, Glynn Purnell, with a fashionable but safe mix of buttery leather, industrial beams, nice light and so much air between the tables you'd have to communicate by semaphore. Though I concede you're not meant to be chatting to other tables, least of all in a financial district. It's not Nando's.

Sunday, August 31, 2008 - I am a sucker for an unmarked doorway that looks like a secret (in this case, a black door with a small silver plaque, to the right of the entrance to Sosho). The East Room treads the line between a highly exclusive members-only joint and a regular restaurant by the surprisingly simple expedient of letting non-members into the restaurant. It is a lovely room - long canteen tables, soft furnishings in intense 1970s browns, high-gloss tiles. It's sexy and retro, a bit like dreaming a porn film through the filter of your childhood.

Sunday, August 03, 2008 - Call me irrational, but in the same way that I prefer a pedigree dog to a pedigree cat, I like a posh Italian restaurant infinitely more than a posh French one. They seem to be able to do serious food without all the pomp. It's a feat; they should run a pan-European masterclass. L'Anima contends with an interior of such stony, city-boy machismo that I felt as if the floor might at any time gape open to reveal a city or a tiger, like in Indiana Jones; and still, for all that, the atmosphere is inviting.