Roganic

Photography throughout courtesy of www.paulwf.co.uk

Although fully aware that in doing so I am laying myself open to accusations of being an oral examiner of equine gifts, I must admit that I initially declined a very kind friend's invitation to dinner at Roganic. For one thing, I hated the name, a vain, corny play on proprietor Simon Rogan's, to the same irrational extent to which I hate buskers and people who own folding bicycles. For another, I was put off by the cost - £55 for six courses or £80 for ten before even a drop of liquor passes the lips might not shock these days what with the cost of eating out in London soaring to record levels, but it still isn't exactly what I'd call affordable.

I was further turned off by the fact that Roganic is cringeingly styled as an 'extended pop-up' - Rogan having taken a two-year lease on a vacant site on Blandford Street in Marylebone - which irritated me even more than pop-ups do in general; part of the joy for me in eating out often is the sense that I will from time to time come across somewhere so good that I will want to go back again and again, and pop-ups are anathematic to this. Finally, I was afflicted by early-onset review fatigue; with everyone being served exactly the same dishes, within about a fortnight of Roganic opening I was so fed up of reading only subtly different takes on identical meals that the last thing I wanted to do was eat there myself.

Never one to take no for an answer however, my particularly persuasive pal Paul Winch-Furness crossed off all my objections (apart from to the name, which even I was able to see was not reason in itself to boycott somewhere): Cost? I'm paying, he said. Pop-up? That's as may be agreed Paul, but if you like it you can go back a few times in the space of two years, and if you really like it you can always visit its parent restaurant, L'Enclume in Cumbria. As for repetitious reviews, Paul pointed out that the week he had in mind to go would coincide with the first change to the menu since Roganic opened in early July. How could I say no?

Gauthier Soho

After the unmitigated disaster of our recent experience at Les Deux Salons, I wanted my next meal with fashion-and-now-food blogger Michael Ford to be really special. In a recent conversation about places with a good reputation for their vegetarian offering - Michael being sadly afflicted by that mercifully rare condition which causes its sufferers to forbid themselves lovely meat - newly-Michelin-starred Gauthier Soho cropped up as being somewhere that we were both keen to try, and although only one indicator of quality, Bibendum's having chosen the restaurant to receive his five-pointed favour was enough to persuade me that this was somewhere we could be guaranteed a good time.

And 'good' it most certainly was, at times very good indeed, but I knew before I'd put down my fork at the end of the seventh course that it was going to be a challenge to write up. For one thing, Michael and I both had the tasting menu and as his was vegetarian and mine wasn't, between us we racked up about a dozen different courses - that's a lot of food requiring a lot of adjectives. Or it would be, if it weren't for the second problem, namely that everything was so uniformly...nice that a dozen synonyms for that would do the job, albeit without making for remotely interesting reading.

But write it up I must, or I would not be a very good blogger (bitch-slap to the first person who says "No change there then") so, it being a very good place to start, let's start at the very beginning. Gauthier Soho occupies a largely-unmodified Georgian townhouse on Romilly Street in Soho, formerly known as the Lindsay House and home to Richard Corrigan's signature restaurant until he decamped to Mayfair a couple of years ago. It's an attractive if impractical space for a restaurant, with no one main dining room but several rooms of various sizes over its three floors. The decor is don't-scare-the-horses luxe; warm neutrals, soft lighting and softer carpets.

The Gauthier of the name is Alexis Gauthier, erstwhile head chef of Michelin-starred Roussillon in Pimlico; in February 2011, barely nine months after it opened, Gauthier Soho won its first star while Roussillon's was taken away. Gauthier describes his style of cooking as 'cuisine by intuition and instinct', proudly relying on his experience and understanding of ingredients and technique rather than recipe books and tradition in order to create his dishes. It's also been described, uglily, as 'vegecentric', meaning that the focus even in meat dishes is on the vegetable.

You'd think then that there'd be more than two vegetarian dishes on the à la carte menu, especially one that is divided into five sections from which diners are invited to choose three, four or the full five plats. On the contrary; it's very meat- and fish-heavy and vegetarians wanting more than two plats are obliged to opt for the seven-course gout du jour. In fairness, that had always been our intention, but it seems rather an odd state of affairs. As indeed is the fact that I've still not told you anything about what we actually ate.

I had foie gras with crisp, thin slices of baked apple (very nice), langoustine with ginger and fennel (happily substituted by the kitchen for the advertised celery, to which - restaurateurs please note, poisoners please don't - I am allergic), black truffle risotto with parmesan and veal jus (very luxurious, quite tasty, but a bit wet), seared rose veal with...I don't remember what, something polenta-y I think (nice, although the searing was more like light cooking, rendering the meat a smidgeon tough) and then rhubarb with rhubarb sorbet (a lovely, zingy, reviving facial slap of a dish) followed by Gauthier's signature Louis XV, a chocolate and wafer confection with a thick, viscous chocolate coating and a shaving of real gold leaf on top. It was, you've guessed it, very...nice, like a Michelin-starred Twix Fino. Cheeses, French bien sur, were terrific.

If I'm not at all enthusiastic about any of this, I'm certainly not critical of it either; there was nothing wrong with any of it, nothing whatsoever, but in seven courses only one mouthful really made me sit up and take notice (the rhubarb) while the rest was just so polite and refined that I found myself wishing that there could be just a little spice here, or allium there, or contrast somewhere to liven things up a bit.

All the niceties of fine dining were present and correct and certainly added value to what, at £68 for seven courses (£60 for the vegetarian version which Michael has eloquently written about here) was certainly excellent value for money. Amuse-bouches were lovely (I particularly liked a truffled quail's egg) as for the most part were the petit-fours, although one bite of an as-bad-as-it-sounds basil truffle had us both screwing up our noses in distaste and leaving the rest.

Inexplicably, there's no matching wine flight available or even suggestions for wines by the glass to accompany the tasting menus and the sommelier wasn't on hand to assist so I had to make a noble stab at choosing something from the lengthy list that would work, or at least not clash, with everything; an Argentina Villa Vieja Viognier at £27 did the job for the savouries while a glass each of Plessis saw us through the desserts. When another table's bottle of wine was erroneously emptied into our glasses - another reason to let diners do it themselves, dear restaurateurs? - another bottle was opened and the exact amount of ours that had been wasted was replaced, then a top up given. Good service recovery, but the initial slip-up isn't the sort of thing you expect at this level.

Other little niggles worthy of note: in what I can only imagine is meant to be a mark of respect to the building's townhouse past, guests have to ring an old-fashioned push doorbell for entry, and the loud peal annoyed the living hell out of me as it went off every few minutes throughout much of the epic four hours that we were there. It would be irritating enough even in a busier, buzzier place, but slight gripe number two is that Gauthier Soho is otherwise strikingly, monastically quiet; I'm not a fan of muzak in restaurants - though who is, for that matter - but because of the mish-mash of small dining spaces no one room can ever build up the elusive atmosphere that makes a restaurant somewhere you enjoy being and would want to return to.

Which leads us to the big question, I suppose, which is would I recommend Gauthier Soho, and indeed I would - my body-double Bibendum rates it worth a visit and so do I, but with some caveats. Come if you want to experience good food, prepared thoughtfully with obvious technical expertise and care, in surroundings well-suited to contemplation, at not excessive prices. But if you're after more of a thrill, something to amaze and delight you and serve up a side order of excitement with your spectacle, then this is probably not the place for you.

My search for somewhere which caters really, truly, exceptionally well for my vegetarian Michael goes on. Suggestions are most warmly invited.

Gauthier Soho, 21 Romilly Street, London W1D 5AF Tel: 020 7494 3111 http://www.gauthiersoho.co.uk

Hibiscus, Mayfair

London Restaurant Festival, which concludes on Monday, has been like Christmas to the food-obsessed among us. In only its second year, the LRF has grown from a week-long affair in 2009 to a full-on fortnight in 2010, with hundreds of restaurants offering special menus, American Express sponsorship and a packed programme of high-profile gala events. Of these, the most filling was the insanely abundant launch breakfast at Roast - I really did expect John Cleese to emerge and offer "just weurn waffer theen meent" - and the most fun was the Big Quiz, held over the course of a delicious three-course feast at Le Cafe Anglais and hosted by none other than Anne Robinson - as you can see, we bonded over our shared hair colour.

The most cerebral however was the Big Debate. Held at King's Place and chaired by the debonair human rights lawyer Jason McCue, it pitched Rosie Boycott and Janet Street-Porter against Jonathan Meades and A.A. Gill to debate the motion 'This house believes that French cuisine is a spent force'. So, nothing controversial there then. Warned by McCue not to be lured down the lazy path of Francophobia, the ladies' team, speaking for the motion, bemoaned the demise of French agriculture and the increasing prevalence of the motorway service station, while also praising the ever-improving quality of food and cooking in Britain (a moment of comedy came when JSP, giving a roll call of British chefs, invoked the name of Richard Corrigan only for the man himself to precise from the audience "I'm Irish!")

The gentlemen meanwhile spoke glowingly of the innumerable fine restaurants, shops and manufacturers throughout l'Hexagone (Meades) and of the Proustian memorability of the first taste of a real French croissant, butter and confiture (Gill, whose participation in a debate about a spent force struck me as ironic). Points were awarded or deducted by questioners from the audience as well as McCue and the motion was eventually defeated, albeit by only the narrowest of margins.

Anyone who believes that French cuisine - cuisine in its literal sense of cooking - really is a spent force can not have had the lunch that I had at Hibiscus last Sunday. Chef-patron Claude Bosi's two Michelin-starred restaurant on Maddox Street is renowned as being one of the country's, not just the capital's best so you would expect the experience to be pretty stellar, but add to this the fact that Bosi's co-chef for the day  - under the LRF's American Express-backed 10-10-10 initiative - was none other than Alain Roux, he of the three-star Waterside Inn in Bray, and you can begin to imagine just how spectacular the meal was.

We  - being myself, Alyn and our gorgeous NBFF Chloe - began with an amuse bouche of Hibiscus soda topped with black pepper-infused citrus foam, which was lively, bracing and tart, perfect for prepping our taste-buds for the seven courses to follow (although the Pol Roger we were sipping at this point was also doing a pretty good job.)

First we enjoyed Roux's terrine of pressed foie gras and supreme of guinea fowl with truffle and young red chard leaves. This was flawlessly executed, the dense supreme in the middle of the velvety terrine creating a beautiful complementary texture, although the most exciting part of the dish was the teeny tiny pickled mushrooms - I'm afraid I've no idea what variety - which dotted the plate. Next up was pan-fried lobster medallion - the claw also making a welcome appearance - with white port sauce and ginger-flavoured vegetable julienne. This was how I like my men to be, simple, elegant and rich, and there's nothing that's not improved by a bit of ginger, as Anne Robinson might say.

Claude Bosi took over for the next two courses and this was reflected in the solidly British ingredients, cooked to classically French techniques. First was roast hand-dived scallops [sic - each portion was a singular, though huge, scallop], pork pie sauce, pink grapefruit and wood sorrel. Each scallop was crusted with a mix of herbs and apple, which brought depth to the otherwise light dish. The pork pie sauce - which really did taste like that most perfect of snacks and which I would dearly like a large bottle of to splash over everything - was a witty addition, although we all agreed that the pink grapefruit, served as a teaspoonful of thick syrup, was just too sharp and overwhelmed the sweetness of the plump scallop.

The next, nominally main, course however was just about perfect; Shropshire mallard, a nice nod to Hibiscus's original Ludlow location, poached in grape juice and served with sweet potato and saffron. In my enthusiastic amateur's opinion, this was about as good as food gets: the tenderest meat, well-judged accompaniments (the sauce included a handful of lovely poached grapes; the potatoes were whipped into a smooth, saffron-scented purée), elegantly plated and served in just the right quantities. Then followed a pre-dessert - what used to be known as a 'palate cleanser' - of apple salad, sweet celeriac and chestnut cream, which tasted rather like stewed apple baby food, or Colman's apple sauce, but looked pretty and straddled the savoury/sweet axis most efficiently.

Each chef had created a dessert, one the epitome of traditional French cuisine  -Alain Roux's textbook pistachio crème brulée - the other boldly contemporary, being Claude Bosi's cep tart with macadamia nut ice cream. Yes, cep as in mushrooms; Bosi had conceived a tart of very sweet short crust pastry with a sweetened, but unmistakeably, earthily savoury filling, the ice cream adding salt and smoke. When I told smarty-pants James Ramsden this the next day he looked at me as a resigned parent would at their idiot child and said "It's called umami dear" - but I'm sure you all knew that anyway. As a table we unanimously loved the crème brulée but couldn't reach a consensus on the tart; I for one thought it was fantastic, as were the hand-made chocolates which accompanied the delicious, tar-thick rocket fuel coffee.

I've focused firmly on the food thus far - and to be fair, how could I not - but other brilliant bits deserve a mention. Right at the start, even before the gorgeous baked in-house sourdough bread and unsalted French butter were brought to the table, we'd been treated to a basket of Bosi's signature piping-hot goujères - addictive Parmesan and Cheddar-cheese filled puffs resembling incredibly posh dough balls. The wines chosen for us to accompany the menu were exceptional: a crisp, light, treacle-yellow 2002 Ribolla, Gravner from Italy; a big, complex, more-fruit-than-Carmen-Miranda's-hat Vinsobres Cote de Rhone Villages, and with our brace of desserts an unusual Ice Cider from Quebec, a North American version of cider brandy but with a deeper sweetness and extraordinary length.

Service was absolutely impeccable; the wines were presented to us by easily the most enthusiastic and engaging sommelier I'd ever encountered, and our food brought and introduced by an equally committed and lovely (not to mention preposterously handsome) waiter who expertly tempered respect for formality with judicious humour and panache. My particular favourite touch - whether practised or not I couldn't tell but I loved it anyway - was both the waiter's and sommelier's habit of making suggestions rhetorically; "Shall I arrange a drop more of that for you?" in response to an empty glass, or "Would you be feeling ready for your desserts now?" which have the effect of making one feel terribly clever for simply saying "Yes". It's a highly enjoyable form of cosseting which I could get dangerously used to.

Alas I'm unable to tell you what this three hour Bacchanal cost, not because it was free as I know some readers might be thinking from all the references to American Express (from whom I have not received so much as an additional membership reward point) but because it was extremely kindly and generously paid for by our lady host and it would have been rude to ask. What I can tell you, as a guide, is that three courses a la carte at Hibiscus is usually £75, with offers at lunchtime and a tasting menu at £80 for six courses. This makes it rather more affordable than the Waterside Inn, whose prices left me breathless when I researched them.

Hyperbole is an occupational hazard in food writing - I remember how I used to flinch when, in every one of her mercifully now discontinued reviews, one free-sheet critic would refer to her having been 'in raptures' at one dish or another - so it's with careful aforethought and the space of a week's reflection that I can say that this was one of the best meals I have ever had. Hibiscus shows that French cuisine is no more a spent force than the vibrant, vital culinary scene which London Restaurant Festival champions and which right now is one of the most, perhaps the most, exciting in the world. And that's not open to debate.

Hibiscus, 29 Maddox Street, London W1S 2PA Tel: 020 7629 2999 http://www.hibiscusrestaurant.co.uk   

Koffmann's, Knightsbridge

For those of us afflicted by the increasingly-common condition known as Restaurant Obsessive Disorder - symptoms of which include poring over online menus late at night, booking tables at new restaurants the minute phonelines open, and cataloguing everything we eat in words and even pictures assuming it to be of interest to others - the comings, goings and coming again of famous chefs at The Berkeley have been as fascinating as the peregrinations of the yellow warbler are to ornithologists.

Twelve years ago, Pierre Koffmann moved his three-Michelin starred restaurant La Tante Claire from its site at 68 Royal Hospital Road to The Berkeley, an early example of a top chef being lured to a top hotel. The Chelsea site vacated by La Tante Claire was taken on by the then relatively-unknown Gordon Ramsay, who three years later had three stars of his own. When Koffmann entered semi-retirement in 2003 (semi- in that he kept on a consultancy gig) and closed La Tante Claire, the by now very well-known Ramsay was taken on by The Berkeley's owners, Maybourne, to oversee all their restaurants. His two-starred, Marcus Wareing-helmed Pétrus replaced La Tante Claire, and Jean-Georges Vongerichten's fusion temple Vong was booted out to make way for Gordon's smart-casual Boxwood Cafe.

Fast forward to 2010, and following very public fallings out between Ramsay and Maybourne (which only Gordon Ramsay at Claridge's survived), and between Wareing and Ramsay, a practically unchanged Pétrus is now Marcus Wareing at The Berkeley and the Boxwood Cafe site - empty since April 2010 - has been taken on by...none other than an un-retired Pierre Koffmann. Plus ca change, as M. Koffmann might say. I tell you all this by way of bringing home the point - to non-ROD sufferers - that in London restaurant terms, Koffmann's is A Very Big Deal Indeed. It's for this reason that I chose to go there for Sunday lunch with my friend Nina, who on her occasional visits from Bermuda entrusts to me the choosing of somewhere fabulous for a long, boozy catch-up meal. To my great relief and pleasure, Nina's trust was repaid by Koffmann's being every bit as good as I had expected it to be.

In keeping with the reputation of The Berkeley itself, everything about the restaurant is discreetly luxurious, all pale surfaces and gentle lighting, with cheerful flashes of colour provided by green-upholstered chairs and some wonderful floral arrangements. It's smart rather than formal; Nina and I were in our Sunday best but other diners were in jeans and didn't look out of place. The size of the tiered room - there are two dining rooms separated by a very chic bar area on the landing between - would allow for more tables than there are; the resulting generous spacing adds to the air of relaxed elegance.

The Sunday lunch menu, offering three choices for each of three courses, is exceptional value at just £26, round about the price of a main course on the a la carte (the cuisine may be 'the simple, rustic...food of the countryside' but the prices are very much of the city). To kick off, Nina chose chicken liver parfait which was excellent, a hint of anise lifting it above the ordinary although its being served in a teeny-tiny Kilner jar seemed a little gastropub. My salad of hearts of palm with shrimps was much more in keeping with the surroundings; well-presented, colourful and classy. The crunchy shredded hearts were dressed in a lovely mustard/citrus emulsion full of flavour but not so much as to overwhelm the fat, sweet shrimps on top.

We both chose the same main course, braised shoulder of lamb with white bean cassoulet, and there could be no better example of the 'hearty, robust seasonal food' which it is Pierre Koffmann's stated intent to provide. The lamb was soft and rich, shaped into a neat cylinder and served on a bed of the hearty but not heavy stew. We were pleasantly surprised to be served a trio of complimentary side dishes (quite why they were complimentary I wasn't sure, but let's just say Nina is a very attractive woman) of honeyed carrots, green beans and  - a little oddly given our menu choices - French fries. All were good, although I thought the little metal pail the chips were served in was naff rather than nice.

We shared a flawless dessert of caramelised oeufs a la neige - more commonly known as ile flottante or floating island - a featherlight cloud of meringue atop a sweetened custard. Having spied, and smelled, the cheese trolley from across the room we shared a selection of the magnificently kept cheeses from La Fromagerie, two cow's and two goat's milk of which our favourites were the smooth, strong Fougeru and a salty Persille du Marais. A bottle of Corbieres Classique, Chateau Ollieux Romanis 2008 at £28 saw us through the meal, light enough to complement the starters yet robust enough to match well with the richness of the lamb and cheese dishes.

Service was generally as excellent as it should be in an establishment of this pedigree, but a couple of inadequacies stuck out. The waiter who took our food order would not take our wine order, but the sommelier sent to do so did no more than write down the name of the wine I had to point to on the list. The amuses-bouche we were presented with was no more than an anchovy fillet wrapped around a black olive on a disc of near-stale bread and the petits fours served with coffee, miniature chocolate macarons, were fridge-cold and chewy. These little freebies are lovely if they add something to the meal but if the desire isn't there to provide good ones, I'd rather have none at all.

These though really are minor gripes and don't in any way affect my opinion that this is a restaurant worth obsessing over. The food is superb, the atmosphere comforting and the service respectful but warm. It's not horrendously expensive either; our beautiful lunch, a good bottle of wine, a port, coffees and service came to £56 each.

The next time Pierre Koffmann retires it may be for good. ROD-sufferer or not, I'd recommend getting yourself to The Berkeley and catching him while you can.

Koffmann's, The Berkeley, Wilton Place, London SW1X 7RL Tel: 020 7235 1010 http://www.the-berkeley.co.uk/koffmanns.aspx

Racine, Knightsbridge

If the love of money is the root of all evil, then Knightsbridge must be the most evil place on Earth. Everywhere you go in SW1, conspicuous wealth and consumption abound; gaudily customised supercars line the pavements outside the ever-heaving Harrods, all the £30-million plus penthouses have sold out at the new One Hyde Park development, and three-star chefs are falling over themselves to open restaurants in five-star hotels. As if enclosed in a protective, recession-proof bubble, the occupants of Knightsbridge appear oblivious to austerity, be they resident in one of the area's exclusive red brick terraces or visiting for the summer from one or another emirate.

It's only in an area like Knightsbridge that a place like Racine could have 'firmly established itself as a favourite neighbourhood French restaurant' as the website proudly states. Almost anywhere else, chef-proprietor Henry Harris's slick, classic bistro would be considered pricy and posh, to be saved for special occasions, but in relation to most nearby competitors Racine is comparatively inexpensive (though cheap it ain't), and markedly less formal. It's also, deservedly I'd say based on my recent visit, doing a roaring trade.

My lifelong best friend Andrew and I were having dinner to celebrate his recent success in being appointed to a senior sales position at Emporio Armani just up the road (as an alumnus of the label I know first hand just how damn hard it is to even get a foot in the door) and chose Racine on the basis of our having both heard good things about it. In fact, Racine has been on my radar ever since it opened; I was an early adopter of Henry Harris's honest, luxurious cooking when he was at Fifth Floor at Harvey Nichols just round the corner and was immediately interested when he left to set up Racine - I just didn't get round to actually eating there until last week.

Like the area, the food at Racine is very, very rich. Harris appears to hold no truck with modern healthy eating fads; the menu is a delightful list of patés, mousses and remoulades, of roasts and grills and chops. Everything is garnished, sauced or buttered, and served in abundant portions; naturally, I bloody loved it even though I waddled out at the end of our meal and may drop dead of a heart attack before the week's out.

To start with, Andrew had a warm garlic and saffron mousse with mussels and I chose hot foie gras with wilted endive, piment d'Espelette and spiced bread. Andrew's mousse was almost soufflé-light but still very creamy in texture, tasted subtle without being bland and paired nicely with the flavour of the handful of plump, poached mussels surrounding it. My liver was just gorgeous; warm, quivering, unctuous and indulgent, it went beautifully with the nutmeg spiciness of the toast and the slight bitterness of the endive. My palate isn't refined enough to have detected any particular flavour of Espelette pepper, but as the sum of its parts this dish worked very well.

Main courses were equally as good if also rather heavy. As a lover of both offal and blue cheese I was never going to choose anything but the grilled veal kidneys with Roquefort butter, which came served additionally with some velouté-smooth mashed potato. The two fat, silky kidneys were full of flavour, cooked just through to a pale rose and bathed in a good couple of ounces of salty, tangy butter. It was a a terrific combination which given the choice I would probably have preferred without the potato; it was undeniably beautiful mash but just tipped the dish as a whole over into over-richness. Andrew's breast of duck with new season's grelots (baby onions), lovage and a gateau campagnard - a sort of apple-y rosti - was more balanced, the duck almost quackingly pink and the vegetables complementing rather than competing with it.

Determinedly we ploughed on to desserts figuring that we might as well be hanged for un mouton as un agneau. My pot of vanilla cream with Agen prunes was essentially unburnt crème brulée served over fruit in an upright dish, simple but enjoyable and evidently made from only the very creamiest cream, the kind of stuff that looks at extra thick double cream with pity in its eyes. Andrew's pud of choice was even simpler but also even better, vanilla ice cream of exceptional quality - home-made or not we weren't told - with a little jug of preposterously perfect hot Valrhona chocolate sauce.

Fancying a light-ish red wine we drank a very agreeable 2007 Chateau de Tersac, Corbieres which coped well with the succulent textures and flavours of the food and was fairly priced at £21. The wine list is long but undaunting, sub-divided helpfully into 'from Europe' (though by and large this means France) and 'from around the World' and then into by the glass, half bottles and bottles. There's something for every palate and price range although a black mark is awarded for the incessant pouring of it - three waiters in as many minutes had to be told Non, merci until it sank in that we could and wished to do it ourselves. Service was otherwise charming, polite, and well-paced.

Our bill, on which we received a 25% discount thanks to a Toptable offer, came to a very fair £80 and even if we had paid the full whack of £96 I'd have felt we'd got good value for money. My only objection, as much out of principle as confusion, was that Racine charges a lofty 14.5% service, an inexplicable whisker less than the 15% only really charged in the hautest of places but a hefty 2% over the more usual twelve point five. Knightsbridge being Knightsbridge I expect Racine's regular clientele don't bat an eyelid at such piddling sums; to the rest of us however it's an unwelcome extra expense and that's, well, just a bit rich.

Racine, 239 Brompton Road, London SW3 2EP Tel: 020 7584 4477 http://www.racine-restaurant.com/ 
 

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J. Sheekey

J. Sheekey, the fish and seafood specialist hidden just off St Martin's Lane, is the equally successful but never-quite-as-famous sibling of Scott's in Mayfair; Maggie Gyllenhaal to Scott's' Jake. It's also one of my absolutely favourite restaurants of all time, ever. 

From my first visit about eight years ago with my then boyfriend to last night's brief but wonderful visit with my gorgeous friend Caroline, it's never disappointed, and while the prices might occasionally cause a sharp intake of breath - I'm still in therapy from the time I blithely said to mum 'Now don't worry about the prices, you just order what you like' only for her to 'like' half a lobster and the roasted mixed shellfish -  there are some comparative bargains to be had.

During July and August, if you eat pre-theatre as Caroline and I did - Sheekey's is perfectly located for it - their superlative fish and chips and a glass of house wine can be had for just £15.75, about the same as at Brown's just across the courtyard except at Brown's there isn't a top-hatted doorman to greet you. From the a la carte menu, the justifiably famous fish pie is a very reasonable £13.50 and is pleasingly biased towards the piscine side of the filling/topping axis. At weekends, there's a set lunch menu offering three courses for a very fair £25.50.

What I'd really recommend however is that you save Sheekey's for those special occasions - anniversaries, birthdays, BAFTA wins - when you or whoever's paying feel inclined to blow the budget and you can indulge yourself in the full array of sparklingly fresh oysters, perfect crustacea and finest fish caught that day, along with a bottle or two from the excellent and not-too-terrfiyingly-priced wine list. 

As well as superb food you'll enjoy superlative service, handsome decor and, if star spotting's your thing, no doubt a glimpse of a theatrical dame or motion picture knight or two. Booking's a bugger but worth persevering at; if you can't stand the struggle the more informal Oyster Bar next door doesn't require (but accepts) reservations and keeps some seats free for walk-ins.

The smart wood panelling, contemporary art and black and white photos of stage and screen stars through the ages make Sheekey's a very grown-up place (although children are welcome I've never seen any) and if there's anything to criticise about it - and I really do struggle to think of anything - it's that the atmosphere might at times feel a little too hushed and the general ambience a little too formal for some tastes. While there's always a sense of celebration in the air here, as a venue it's neither suited to nor intended for boisterous parties or casual dining; it's a serious place serving serious food, and photography - of others or of one's meal - would be as welcome as a bone in the filleted Dover sole.

Other restaurants might be more fun, or creative, or accessible than J. Sheekey, but very few indeed are actually better. I hope that you'll try it, and that when you do you'll love it as much as Maggie loves Jake.

J. Sheekey, 28-32 St. Martin's Court, London WC2N 4AL Tel: 020 7240 2565 http://www.j-sheekey.co.uk 

HIX, Soho

Regular readers - and there are literally ones of them - of this blog will know that I am a great admirer of uber-chef and fellow Dorset boy Mark Hix. I've eaten at most of the restaurants with which he has been associated over the years, including actually being cooked for by the man himself in the days when he could be found knife-wielding at The Ivy, and weekly devour his column in Saturday's Independent, often trying my hand - to mixed degrees of success - at his always innovative recipes. 

I treat as authoritative his articles on ingredients, farming, fishing, provenance and locality, and have learnt a great deal on each of these from him; it is no exaggeration to say that Mark Hix's cooking and writing have shaped the way I eat today, my food tastes, likes and dislikes. Years ago, when I threw up a Hix signature dish at Rivington Grill (through, naturally, no fault of the chef's own), it felt akin to blasphemy.

I'd been excited about the prospect of eating at HIX (block capitals seems to be the accepted rendering of the name) for ages, ever since noticing by chance, walking down Brewer Street, that the site of Gary Yau's short lived haute-Japanese Aaya had been reborn as part of the burgeoning Hix empire (there are another two restaurants bearing his name, one in London, one in Lyme Regis in Dorset, as well as a consultancy gig at Brown's Hotel). Alas for me, the opening up of HIX coincided with my opening up by a surgeon, and the dreary recuperation diet I was put on precluded any fancy-pants restauranting for a few weeks. 

I could only read, weep and salivate as reviewer after reviewer got in there first, almost all agreeing (with the notable exception of Metro's Marina O'Loughlin, who I greatly admire) that Mark had pulled off the unthinkable and opened a surefire success of a restaurant in the middle of The Worst Recession In Living Memory (TM). But, as one day surely shall the economy, I recovered, and when it came to deciding where to have a celebratory lunch there was only one choice. My glamorous friend Nina, over on business from Bermuda and no stranger to fine dining, was my lunch companion.

So that I can focus on all the good bits about HIX - and there are many - let me begin by getting a handful of really quite minor but collectively significant gripes out of the way. Firstly, booking a table at HIX was not an all-together painless experience. Three attempts to get through were aborted due to unacceptable times waiting for the call to be answered, and when I did get through I was spoken to, if not with disdain, then not with the degree of warmth which one might hope for from a person one has been kept waiting for the privilege of speaking to. It's also not nice to be told that your table - booked for 12.30 - will be needed back after two hours; I am unlikely to want to linger for two hours over lunch, but if I am, are you really expecting to be fully-booked at 2.30 on a Monday, Mark? Really? It just felt unnecessary and ground my gears. 

Then there's the menu. For the most part it's in plain enough English - 'Atlantic prawn cocktail', 'Devilled lamb's kidneys on toast' and so on - but there's also an awful lot that needs deciphering and I thought we'd done away with that when we all started calling creme brulee burnt cream. Serious foodies - and readers of Mark's Independent column - will be fluent in the language of crubeens, cod's tongues (which, nota bene, are not exactly the tongues of cod) and slip soles, but I suspect that many diners are not and may not care to have to ask the staff to have to explain quite so much of the menu to them. I don't for a second doubt that the delightful staff would take great pleasure in doing so, but it just seems a little bit cliquey, a little bit insular, a little cleverer than thou. 

Last of the niggles is that unlike almost all other restaurants playing at this level of the game, HIX lacked anyone discernibly in charge; several (lovely) ladies welcomed us at the door and waved us off, and there were a number of suited chaps of both sexes wandering, unsmiling I noted, around the dining room ostensibly overseeing things, but if there was a maitre(sse) d' on the premises I failed to spot him. Maybe it's a deliberate thing, part of the studied informality which typified the service, but personally I like at some point during my three courses to receive a fleeting visit from someone high up in the honcho stakes just to check that I am a happy chappy; a little bit of extra love over and above the waiter's customary 'Is everything OK?'-type enquiry.

Venting over, I can now unleash the praise,and the hitherto identified quibbles notwithstanding, HIX is really very good indeed. Really, seriously good. Even the front door is good, a Brobdingnagean slab of heavy dark wood which it took all my not-insubstantial weight to open; it's foreboding and inviting at the same time, hinting at decadence and maybe danger within. The interior's a hit too, a very New Yorky, mostly white, high-ceilinged space decorated sparsely but modishly with mobiles (not phones, though that would be fun, but the suspended variety) designed by Hix's big name artist pals.

Tables, bare wood with sturdy but comfortable leather seats, are generously spaced out around the L-shaped room and I honestly couldn't spot what I would class as a 'bad' table. Once seated, water (in fun pub counter whisky jugs) and bread - a whole, home-baked mini-loaf of it - are brought swiftly before, in another Big Apple-style gesture, the day's cuts of steak are paraded on a butcher's block at your tableside. As well as being a nice bit of salesmanship - the sight of the 1KG Porterhouse is truly mouth-watering - it's helpful to have the three cuts on offer explained, although I was a bit baffled by the surely oxymoronic 'fillet served on the bone'.

The menu, even with its scattering of obscurities, reads wonderfully; it's comfortingly similar to that at Rivington Grill - even the font is almost identical - and only slightly dearer, so the soups, salads and traiteur-type meat-treat starters are around the £8-£9 mark while mains are in the range of £14-£21 unless of course you're minded to have that Porterhouse steak at £65 for two. Contrary to what one might infer from the reverence afforded to beef, the menu is actually slightly fish-biased and this being a Hix restaurant the emphasis is on sustainability, with gurnard, silver mullet and haddock all making an appearance (although how Mark squares serving only the 'tongues' of cod, and not the rest, I'm not sure; nose-to-tailfin eating this ain't). 

Nina and I both started with soup, she the pumpkin with sage and chestnuts and game with soft poached egg for me. Both were very good, Nina's was full of flavour, brightly coloured and packed with fragrant sage, and mine was a heart-warming and filling, if slightly over-salted bowl of rich, creamy broth packed with shreds of partridge and tasty mallard.

To follow, Nina chose the beef flank, porter and oyster pie - OK yes, down the pub it would be called steak and ale pie but this is HIX, sweetie - a dark, rich stew of fibrous, tender meat in thick gravy under a golden, crackling crust topped with a solitary gratinated oyster. The lonely bivalve, whilst as bracingly fresh as being knocked off your feet by a morning wave, seemed somewhat surplus to requirements; the pie itself disappeared to approving noises from across the table.

I opted for the flat-iron steak (a thick cut from the shoulder, similar in texture to onglet) with baked bone marrow. This was the star dish of the meal, the tender steak chargrilled to black on the outside but still yielding and rare in the middle, and full of barbecue flavour. The accompanying bone marrow - one of my absolutely favourite things - was mashed up with herbs and seasoning and served piled back into a shin bone, split down the middle and hollowed out. It was a carnivore's delight, almost primal in conception but resolutely modern in delivery. A nice touch was its being presented with three mustards to choose from, English, wholegrain and - my favourite, Tewkesbury, somewhat like Dijon but cut with horseradish for extra bite. I loved it all. 

The only flat note food-wise was a side of chips, which were just, well, extremely ordinary chips. There simply wasn't room for dessert; portions at HIX are fairly huge and it's all too good to leave even a scrap of. Wanting to at least try something from the puddings list we ordered 'Julian Temperley's cider brandy & Venezuela black truffles', and a more intense whack of pure cocoa flavour has seldom passed my lips. Diners with room for more can choose from a very British selection including rice pudding, Bakewell tart and berry posset.

We drank modestly and well; we toasted our reunion and my return to health with a glass apiece of Joseph Perrier (Laurent's younger, cooler brother perhaps?) champagne, louchely served in a retro coupe, and accompanied our food with a 500ml carafe of a smooth, blackcurrant-heavy Barossa Valley Shiraz/Cabernet Sauvignon chosen from the excellent and reasonably priced list. France is most prevalent but fans of Spain, Italy and the New World won't be disappointed; light drinkers and those on a budget will also welcome the superb selection of wines available by the 175ml glass and carafe. 

Service throughout was generally good, the comfortable informality of the staff never tipping over into over-familiarity, but as the room filled up attentions did seem to divert slightly to other tables and we had to attract our waiter's attention in order to place our dessert order and request the bill. 

All in, the bill came to just over £50 a head which I think will work out as about the going rate here. Downstairs there's a very attractive bar area - all but empty in contrast to the buzzing restaurant but I would imagine it's a very different story by night - and had we had more time before or after lunch I would gladly have stopped in to sample some of the delights on the interestingly compiled cocktail list. There's a separate bar menu and I can easily see this becoming a very fashionable, club-like Soho staple.

HIX may be a new address on the rapidly lengthening list of Soho hot spots but there's nothing really new about it; I mean this to flatter, as HIX is a synthesis of all the very best bits of the restaurants through which Mark Hix has blazed his trail. HIX combines the mystique of The Ivy, the excellence of J. Sheekey and the fashionableness of Rivington Grill, while at the same time being unmistakeably all about Hix; at reception, in the bar and even on the menu you are reminded that the great man, as well as feeding you in his restaurant, can also sell you his books, salad dressings and souvenirs. 

It's a very well-executed enterprise and before long I can absolutely see it taking over from, or at least rivalling, The Ivy and Scott's for sheer cachet. Now that my digestion is fully functional again, and provided I can get through to book my two-hour slot at a table, I intend to revisit HIX as often as I can until the celebs and media barons take over and getting in here becomes as much of a challenge as at those, for now, more famous competitors.

HIX, 66-70 Brewer Street, London W1F 9UP Tel: 020 7292 3518 http://www.hixsoho.co.uk

Apsleys: A Heinz Beck Restaurant

Before I launch into what is going to be, let me warn you now, a gushing eulogy to my incredible dining experience at Apsleys, let me first get out of the way my one, solitary gripe: that inelegant, clunking name. Until about four years ago, the restaurant at The Lanesborough Hotel on Hyde Park Corner was known simply as The Conservatory; then, following a tasteful and no doubt very expensive make-over, it was renamed Apsley's in honour of Apsley House, a.k.a. No. 1 London, the one-time residence of the Dukes of Wellington just across the road. In September, it was announced - to great excitement in the foodie community and not least in my small corner of it - that the kitchen was to come under the control of German-born, Italy-based superchef Heinz Beck, holder of three Michelin stars for his restaurant La Pergola in Rome.

Now, you'd think, wouldn't you, that this momentous occasion might merit a change of name to - say - 'Heinz Beck' or perhaps 'Heinz Beck at The Lanesborough'. Losing the Apsleys name would be no great loss; while well-respected and reasonably renowned, scoring fairly highly in (to give just one example) Zagat's 2010 guide, it has always been a stealth-wealth, cognoscenti type destination which could have survived a more radical name change. Even 'Heinz Beck at Apsleys' would trip off the tongue more easily if they really had to keep the name; but no, the powers that be have lumbered this astonishingly brilliant restaurant with an astonishingly dreadful moniker. Which, as this little rant will have made apparent, rather grinds my gears.

Crap name notwithstanding, Apsleys gets absolutely everything else very right indeed. To start with the room, it's a very beautiful space, the soaring glass ceiling adding drama to the luxuriously decorated, two-tiered space, done out in shades of mauve and taupe with plush, swirl-patterned carpet, modernist chandeliers and a mural the length of one wall. It's the polar opposite of many contemporary restaurant interiors with their minimalist, neutral decor and calculated absence of elaboratory flounces, but I liked Apsleys all the more for it; it strikes me that the perfect antidote to the current on-going economic doom and gloom is a little bit of unapologetic, conspicuous luxury, and Apsleys offers an abundance of it.

Another wonderfully old-school aspect of the experience is the service, boasting the highest ratio of waiting staff to tables I've experienced since Gordon Ramsay at Claridge's (of which, while I mention it, note the thoroughly sensible name - but I digress). Many restaurants make the mistake of thinking that having an army of staff will guarantee good service, but fail to train their people to a sufficiently high level and end up oppressing diners with over-attentiveness. Not so at Apsleys, where the battalion of staff from head waiter to junior tray-bearer via a couple of 'ranks' in between, has been drilled to perfection, ensuring that every diner's every need is not only met but also pre-empted, and those little acts that in lesser diners feel like fuss for fussing's sake - re-folding napkins while one's in the lav, topping up wine and water - just happen as if by magic.

Finally, and importantly, the staff have that rare quality of a sense of humour; our waiter played along with my shriek of mock-shock when he announced that 'Ze chef 'as prepared for you a little surprise' and our playful eye-rolling which greeted the detailed introductions and explanations of successive dishes. I don't mind this particular, new-ish quirk to fine dining as long as it genuinely adds something to my knowledge of the dish - here it does - but I nonetheless find it insanely amusing.

Speaking of which, it wasn't just me being amused but also my bouche, which leads me rather neatly to the important matter of what we actually ate, we being myself and my artist pal PV, like me not averse to a swanky dining room and a bit of top quality nosh. First to hit the table was a selection of wonderful freshly baked breads (special mention must go to the pancetta-infused rolls), accompanied by some excellent olive oil and rock salt served in dainty china dishes.

Then, as we sipped a glass of delicious Prosecco, we were presented with chef's aforementioned 'surprise' - not Heinz Beck popping up from beneath the table shouting 'Boo!' but a trio of quirky amuses: a liquorice allsort-sized slice of pepper and aubergine terrine, a melting veal beignet on a wisp of basil cream, and a piquant cube of kumquat jelly. The unlikely combination worked to serve the intended dual purpose of these things, namely to give a taste of what to expect from the meal ahead and to awaken the palate in readiness for it.

Palates awakened we started on our starters; PV had chosen potato cream with slow-cooked egg, while I went for Iberian suckling pig with pomegranate emulsion. Both were superb, PV's rich, thick soup marrying nicely with the almost jelly-like texture of the gently poached egg, the former being gently and ceremoniously poured over the latter at the table. My dish surprised me slightly by being not a simple dish of robustly-flavoured meat as I'd expected but actually a quite delicate salad, the slices of tender, rare meat joined on the plate by a scattering of wild herbs and pomegranate seeds as well as the tart, refreshing emulsion. It worked well, the meat and fruit complementing each other as comfortingly as roast pork and apple sauce but in a much lighter incarnation.

For our main courses we both fancied fish; I chose gilthead sea bream with pepper coulis and cucumber, while PV decided to try the mackerel in filo with olives and celery. Each dish was elegantly and imaginatively presented, the sea bream in angular herb-dusted goujons accompanied by an unexpected (and delicious) panzanella-stuffed pepper, and the mackerel in a long, appealing 'cigar' of crisp pastry. Each dish perfectly represented Beck's description of his style of cooking, 'light cuisine of Mediterranean flavours', bringing together delicately flavoured components in order to produce complex, rewarding layers of taste in each mouthful.

After a short rest we were brought a selection of palate cleansers, as I had fully expected we would be, Chef having already surprised us quite enough for one evening. Chilled mango puree, served in a shot glass with a hemisphere of crystal clear mint jelly on the side, did an excellent job of refreshing the taste buds without entirely obliterating the lingering flavours of what had gone before. What went after however was, for me at least, the real highlight of a meal that had been full of them.

Billed as 'chocolate tart', what I actually received was three mini-desserts; the tart itself, a shallow bowl of crunchy, spiced pastry filled with rich, warm, viscous melted chocolate laced with ginger; a mound of coarse strawberry 'salsa'; and a quenelle of awesome rosemary ice-cream. Each by itself was speech-arrestingly gorgeous, but when combined on the spoon and taken together almost brought tears of joy to my eyes. The only other dish which I can recall having reacted to with anything like this degree of sheer enjoyment was a strawberry souffle at Guillaume at Bennelong (note, again, the name...) in Sydney; this dessert topped even that. PV's pear cake with cinnamon and crunchy amaretti ice-cream was, he told me, extremely good, but I was so carried away with my plate of Manna that at the time it seemed impossible to countenance anything else on the table being in the same league. I am sure that this was unfair of me and that PV should be taken at his word.

Although I'm certain that coffee at Apsleys would be as carefully selected and presented as the food, we agreed that it would spoil rather than complement our state of pleasant satiation; but this wasn't to be the end of our meal. Whether ordering coffee or not, Chef likes to spoil diners one last time with a plate of hand-made chocolates and petits fours, five per person no less, which like everything to leave his kitchen are exquisite - innovative, light, delicious. A little slab of chocolate ganache spiked with popping candy was particularly memorable and fun.

And there I think is a word to sum up the whole experience of dining at Apsleys (now, let's not forget, 'A Heinz Beck Restaurant'); it really is great fun, being treated like royalty in a gorgeous space, enjoying clever, imaginative food served by adept staff who manage to maintain a studied elegance and formality without ever taking themselves too seriously. PV and I left on a real high, both I think aware that we hadn't just had a great meal, we'd had a really great experience.

So many restaurants, or rather restaurateurs, have gone out of business because they have invested more time and energy in gimmickery and spin than they have in getting the basics of food, ambience and service right. In contrast, assuming that the standards we experienced are maintained, I can see Apsleys quickly becoming one of the hottest tables in town and racking up another few Michelin stars for Mr Beck. Who knows, he might even work his magic outside of the kitchen and get them to do something about that damn silly name.

Apsleys: A Heinz Beck Restaurant, The Lanesborough Hotel, Hyde Park Corner, London SW1X 7TA Tel: 020 7259 5599 http://bit.ly/5giP7



Posted by +Hugh Wright

Rivington Grill

My first visit to Rivington Grill, about five years ago, was memorable for all the wrong reasons. It was not long after the place had opened - to rave reviews - and a fashion-savvy, early-adopter girlfriend had booked a large table for Saturday lunch to celebrate her birthday.

It should have been an exciting opportunity to try out the coolest new place in town - Shoreditch was still very underground in those days - but alas I had tried out rather too many of the uncool places in town the night before, drunk myself rotten, made it to the restaurant only by the grace of God and four Nurofen, and was feeling absolutely fetid.

A 'medicinal' Bloody Mary did me no good at all and it is with shame and regret that I remember to this day my starter of braised calf's cheeks and beetroot shoots coming back up looking pretty much unchanged from when it had gone down. Given that at the time the head honcho in the kitchen was none other than cooking deity Mark Hix, this less-than-favourable emetic reaction to the food was akin to blaspheming in church. Rivington and I did not get off to the best of starts.

Fast forward to summer 2009 and Rivington and I have reacquainted ourselves; I now work in no-longer-as-cool-as-it-was Shoreditch and my bestie Kate lives in so-hip-it-hurts Dalston, so it's handy for both of us and we've paid two visits recently, the second because the first was so damn good. Mark Hix may have moved on (to set up on his own just round the corner, so there's no danger of him taking revenge for the calf's cheeks debacle) but his signature style of simple cooking of seasonal, local ingredients is indelibly stamped on the Rivington's menu.

On visit one, I was delighted to see gull's eggs with celery salt and mayonnaise on the starters as I'm a complete egg addict and had been dying to try this variety, new to me but very much a late-Spring delicacy. I wasn't disappointed; the large-ish egg had a distinctive, rich flavour and unctuous creamy consistency that amply demonstrated what the fuss (and price - £5.50 per egg) was all about.

On our next visit I opted for the delicious-sounding chilled beetroot soup with horseradish cream; velvety-smooth and slightly-sweet - my guess would be that chicken stock is used - it was a light, refreshing earthy delight. Kate liked her first course of Evesham Beetroot and St. Tola goat's cheese salad so much the first time that she had it again on the second, on both occasions pronouncing herself very pleased with it, particularly the tangy freshness of the cheese.

Main courses offer a wide variety of meat and fish dishes (nothing for vegetarians I note, but that's not for here) and of the four we tried over our two dinners, three were excellent. I loved the breaded rose veal with mushrooms and wilted nettles, the huge, finger-thick escalope eating wonderfully with the tiny ceps and herby leaves; Kate was similarly enthusiastic about her dived Lyme Bay scallops with wild garlic and bacon, both dishes politely allowing the main ingredient to shine with the imaginative accompaniments simply adding polish.

Grilled lemon sole with sea purslane and brown shrimp butter was equally good, the excellent - and substantial - fish swimming along most agreeably with the salty, fleshy herbs. The only slight disappointment was the Barnsley lamb chop with kidneys and bubble and squeak; the generously proportioned and undoubtedly well-sourced chop was sadly not well-sauced, crying out as it was for say some redcurrant or mint jelly, neither of which the kitchen was able to provide. This isn't to say that the dish was at all bad; it just wasn't quite as good as the other three triumphs.

Despite the sheer size of the main courses (and my having successfully kept everything down), we nonetheless managed to sample the cheeses and desserts. Whereas some restaurants which generally do well on locality and seasonality can rather give up when it comes to puds, Rivington does not, and everything we tried made the very best use of the season's best fruits: gooseberry pie with Jersey cream, Eton Mess, and raspberry burnt cream (I love the fact that Rivington's Britishness extends even to eschewing the use of 'creme brule'). For me though, as a fromageophile (yep - totally made that one up) the real highlight was the cheese plate which as well as a lovely Gorwydd Caerphilly featured one of my personal favourites Harbourne Blue - a rare, pasteurised goat's milk blue which has all the punch but less of the saltiness of many cow's milk blues.

There's an excellent wine list starting at a very reasonable £15.00 and not going too dizzyingly high after that; it's French-biased but also offers a variety of New World choices to suit every palate and wallet. On our first visit we opted for a terrfic 2007 Picpoul de Pinet, a lovely off-dry fruity white and an undeservedly under-rated grape which I've been enjoying of late, and on our second we embraced the summer and picked the Berry's House Rose Vin de Pays de L'Aude, a complete bargain at fifteen quid and as good as you'd expect from anything Berry Bros would put their name to.

This very fair approach to pricing extends to the food too; prices are all absolutely reasonable to the extent that neither of our bills, both for three courses, wine and service, exceeded £100, unusual these days at this level of quality. Combine this with excellent service - just the right side of informal, unfussy and friendly - and truly stylish decor (there's a Tracey Emin neon on one wall for Chrissakes!) and you can see why this is still a hard-to-beat hit in a neighbourhood which, unlike when Rivington opened, now has a wealth of high-end fashionable restaurants for diners to choose from. I might once have been sick in Rivington Grill, but I'll certainly never be sick of it.

Rivington Grill & Bar, 28-30 Rivington Street, Shoreditch, London EC2A 3DZ Tel: 020 7729 7053 www.rivingtongrill.co.uk

Trinity

I haven't been this blown away by a restaurant since..well, since Trinity chef-patron Adam Byatt's sadly defunct Origin at The Hospital. I'd been meaning to try out Trinity in Clapham Old Town for ages but not got round to it, then on the spur of the moment dropped in for lunch one sunny Monday and had I been wearing socks, they would have been knocked clean off.

Apart from a slightly dodgy ramp up from the front door - I wasn't the only one to trip up it on entering - the decor is beautiful; the space of the late and to be honest, unlamented Polygon has been sensitively transformed into a clean, organic, and comfortable room in warm shades of biscuit and brown with a scattering of modish modern art adorning the walls and for busier times, there's a small bar at the back for diners waiting for tables. Service, from both front-of-house and waiting staff, gets an A++ for being attentive, friendly, knowledgeable and unobtrusive.

As for the food - oh my good Lord, the food is superb and the lunchtime prix fixe at £20 for 3 courses is an absolute steal, with five choices for each course. For starters I went for the meat assiette and Alyn, my partner in life and in lunch, for terrine of confit chicken, smoked ham hock and foie gras. Both were superb, the highlight of mine being the light-as-air, melting veal head carpaccio and Alyn's, the generous nuggets of foie gras which punctuated his terrine. Our main courses were equally impressive; my slow cooked pork belly with creamed potatoes and honey glazed parsnips showed real kitchen expertise by being at once substantial and light, while Alyn's Huntsman's Pie, a generous dish of casseroled rabbit, chicken and bacon topped with a pastry lid the size and fluffiness of a cloud, was also adeptly prepared and disappeared with a speed the poor rabbit within would have envied.

The baked Alaska for two was the stand-out pudding from a mouth watering selection and came served in its own cast-iron dish, its wispy peaks perfectly singed from its recent spell in the oven. It wasn't flambed at the table as they do so impressively at The Ivy, but Trinity is much more about provenance and technique than table-side theatre. There's a fairly concise but very interesting, accessible wine list with prices starting at a recession-friendly £16.50; our 2006 Verdicchio at £25 felt like very good value. A very fair £1.50 cover charge entitles one to delicious home baked bread and Petit Lucques olives as well as - and here's my only, tiny, gripe about Trinity - filtered water, which surely should be completely gratis rather than coming under the cover charge.

I really could not find anything to fault about Trinity, and unusually nor could the very fussy Alyn, who filled in the comment card with glowing praise and with great pleasure. It might have taken me an age to actually get round to trying out Trinity, but having now done so it's guaranteed that I'll be back for more very soon indeed.

Trinity, 4 The Polygon, Clapham, London SW4 0JG Tel: 020 7622 1199 www.trinityrestaurant.co.uk