Galoupet, Knightsbridge

Firstly, a public apology: when our waitress told us straight-faced that Galoupet's offering of small plates to share was a 'unique concept', I laughed out loud and reeled off a list of other places where this could be done, like the worst kind of restaurant-collecting tosser. It was an awful, Onanistic thing to do and I wouldn't for a second have blamed her if she'd tipped my (superb) Pink Basiltini cocktail over my head and had me thrown out. That she didn't, and in fact proceeded to provide unfailingly polite and enthusiastic service for the rest of the night, is to her enormous credit. Mea maxima culpa.

Whether it's entirely unique or not, the menu 'concept' (why does everywhere have to have a 'concept' nowadays?) at Galoupet - a new wine bar/restaurant/shop on Beauchamp Place from the Chateau of the same name - is a very appealing one. Fifteen dishes, most available in a small or large size, are offered in a simple list, in the order in which the kitchen thinks they are likely to be most enjoyed - so salads come first, followed by fish, finishing with some meat dishes.

For every dish there's a suggested wine pairing, served in a 125ml measure, this large variety of by-the-glass options made possible by the use of Enomatic wine storage machines. You don't have to have the suggested wine; the intriguing list offers another twenty or so varieties, including (of course) those from the Galoupet estate itself. The flexibility is there to order lots of small plates to share, each with a different wine, or stick to a conventional starter-main-dessert-and-bottle-of-wine-between-us configuration.

Charlotte's Bistro, W4

Photo: Paul Winch-Furness www.paulwf.co.uk

As well as the many trends in food to have emerged in the last year or so - gourmet Scotch eggs, historic British dishes redux, goat's curd with everything, three-meat blends - something of a fashion has sprung up for giving new restaurants names which don't quite do exactly what they say on the tin.

Thus, Bar Boulud is not a bar but a seriously upscale burger joint, Riding House Cafe (more of which at a later date) isn't a cafe but a buzzy all-day brasserie, and Charlotte's Bistro isn't a bistro but a...well, here's the thing. I'm not quite sure what it is, or rather, what it wants to be. Whatever it is, it's very good, with mostly terrific food, a pleasant room, efficient service and a clearly extremely talented - not to mention charming - chef. The problem, if indeed to anyone but me it is one, is that the whole is not quite the cohesive, knock-your-socks-off sum of its parts.

Cafe Luc, Marylebone

This restaurant is now closed.

If I gave my blog posts headlines rather than simple titles, you can be sure that they would be dreadful punning ones. Bar Boulud? 'Not worth the hulla-Boulud'; Drapers Arms? 'Cut from some very fine cloth', that sort of thing. I say this only because while struggling to think where to begin with appraising an eminently forgettable dinner at Marylebone newbie Cafe Luc, I came up with several groan-out-loud possibilities: 'A Luclustre Performance'; 'Luc warm at best';  'Luc who's coming for dinner' - you get the picture. And speaking of pictures, you know it's come to something when I break my cardinal rule of not photographing food to snap my smiley-faced gazpacho, just to be sure of having something of interest to share.

This isn't to say I was left feeling entirely luctiferous by Cafe Luc, which occupies a huge site at the northern end of fashionable Marylebone High Street. Much of the experience was very agreeable, not least the company of the devilishly-handsome up-and-coming fashion television producer James Tomlinson who, you heard it here first, will very soon be telling us all what not to wear and how to look good clothed. The cocktails we kicked off the evening with - a vodka Martini and a Sea Breeze - were excellent, although there's no list so you just have to know what you want and hope that they know how to make it. And it's a not unattractive if rather corporate-feeling room, with lucent clusters of lamps spaced along biscuity-beige walls and plenty of mirrors for admiring one's fellow diners (and oneself) in. It's just those rather important elements of food and service that let the place down.

On its website, Cafe Luc boasts that "the classic brasserie menu references French and Mediterranean dishes, drawing on seasonal and local produce." So far so appetising, except that the menu doesn't actually make any references to seasonality or provenance, other than for a dish of Cornish mackerel on the prix-fixe which combines both (if by 'local' they mean 'regional' which I rather fancy to be the case). Sure, the smiley gazpacho was made with tomatoes, which are very much in season at the time of writing, but as a showcase of August's abundant lycopene-rich lovelies it wasn't exactly up there with, say, the beautiful, rainbow-hued salad of Heritage toms I enjoyed on my most recent visit to Dean Street Townhouse.

James and I ordered from the prix-fixe, good value at £15.50 and even better value at the £1 it was costing me thanks to an opening online offer. Good value, yes, but also depressingly pedestrian. As well as the gazpacho, which was garlicky, oily and not at all bad, starter choices were smoked salmon (described by both the menu and James as 'fine') served eccentrically on a toasted crumpet, and a duck terrine. Mains included pea risotto, the aforementioned Cornish mackerel and steak frites. We both ordered the latter; it was all right. Our desserts, lemon tart with raspberries and Chantilly and Nutella crème brulée, were good although the latter tasted more of chocolate than of the promised hazelnut and thus disappointed. I'm honestly not sure if we'd have fared any better ordering a la carte; while it's perfectly possible to szhuszh up a 'classic brasserie menu' (step forward Automat) I don't think that's happening in the kitchen at Cafe Luc based on what we were served.

Ah yes - the service. Like the food, it wasn't actively bad, and I would probably have been more sympathetic had what we were eating been really stellar, but the so what-ness of the meal only served to accentuate the 'So what?' attitude of the people serving it. Excepting the warm welcome at the reception desk, staff were for the most part aloof, absent and seemingly uninterested in making our experience a memorable one. Worst of all, they committed the to-me impardonable table-side sin of serving James's main course to his empty place while he was away from the table. Given that other tables seemed to be receiving rather more attention, I can only conclude that because one of us was only paying a pound, we were deemed worthy of only 12.5 pence worth of service.

Somewhat depressingly, I expect that despite the blandness of all it has to offer Cafe Luc will thrive; while over-priced for what it is, perversely it's pretty cheap for Marylebone and in its very ordinariness could service a need for 'plain' food in an enclave which boasts plenty for the gourmand - The Providores, L'Autre Pied and Orrery are all nearby - but little for the casual diner. Whatever your culinary preference, I can only suggest that you Luc elsewhere.

Cafe Luc, 50 Marylebone High Street, London W1U 5HN Tel: 020 7258 9878 http://www.cafeluc.com

Andrew Edmunds, Soho

Years ago, when I was rather less worldly-wise than today, I remember being terribly impressed when Toptable launched a service it grandly called 'Book The Unbookables'. The premise was that Toptable's crack team of bookers would obtain for us mere mortals a table at any one of a number of ultra-exclusive restaurants to which, a reverent Joe Public was steered to believe, they had some sort of magical hotline number.

A few years on, when for a time I held one of those invitation-only charge cards which entitle one to the services of a 24-hour concierge wherever one may be in the world and a foot massage on your birthday, I was similarly impressed by the facility to have a table booked for me at restaurants boasting any number of stars, rosettes or hats, across continents and time-zones, simply by placing a call to a friendly, insomniac team in a Brighton call centre.

These days, Toptable has ceased offering to book the unbookables for us, and the adamantium card has gone back because astonishingly sensibly for me, I realised that the Croesus complex a limitless credit limit engenders in one is neither healthy nor fiscally sustainable. And yet, despite having once been so impressed by both, I miss neither, for the simple reason that I know now that there is no such thing as an 'unbookable' restaurant, merely ones with more people answering the phones, or more clued-up at managing a reservation system, than others. If you can be bothered to persist, and can be flexible with timings, you can get a table anywhere in town, on any night of the week. Unless, that is, the restaurant in question does not take bookings, in which case it is quite literally 'unbookable'.

Such is the case with Polpo, the restaurant I'd intended to take my best friend Andrew to for a birthday dinner last week but which was already full with a '45 minutes, maybe an hour' wait even at 7.15ish on a Thursday. I won't labour the point any further than I already have but suffice it to say that I'm just not interested enough in trying anywhere to wait that long, at least not without a proper waiting area to kill my time in. I'm emphatically not criticising the restaurant for it; if they're that full, that early then I sincerely wish them the very best of luck, I just won't be rushing back myself.

Andrew Edmunds, the nearby restaurant we took ourselves off to instead, only takes bookings a week in advance which although a bit of a bugger if you want to be sure of getting a table for a birthday or Valentine's, strikes me as being a very democratic way of doing things. I've been many a time before and always loved the place, and Andrew had heard my ravings but never had the pleasure, so we took our chances on getting a walk-in and were delighted to find that a table was available if only for the next hour-and-a-bit.

Split over two floors, Andrew Edmunds is known for packing in tables and while some diners find that this makes for a romantic, intimate air, others just find it horribly cramped. We were taken down the rickety stairs to the gorgeous, candle-lit, crepuscular basement which I prefer by a whisker to the even more cheek-by-jowl dining room on the ground floor.

Andrew and I liked the look of everything on that evening's menu; it changes every day but as usual offered around six choices for each course, plus a couple of blackboard specials for mains. The cuisine at Andrew Edmunds is mostly Mediterranean, with a bias to French and with the odd British staple thrown in for good measure. It's unfrightening, unpretentious stuff with just enough flair to excite the more demanding foodie, and all very keenly priced. Starters start at just £3.25 for soup and don't stray much north of £7 (dressed crab's the dearest at £8.75), and there are no mains over £16.

To kick off, Andrew chose king scallop ceviche with avocado puree and I opted for smoked eel with apple and beetroot salad and horseradish creme fraiche. The ceviche was terrific, super-fresh (as of course it should be) and packing just enough citrus kick as to not overpower the delicacy of the scallops. It came with a fairly abundant herb salad, punchily dressed, which along with the rich smoothness of the avocado puree created a perfect balance of flavours and textures. Andrew, being a musical sort, called it 'symphonic', which I mentally noted as being rather a good description to steal for this post. My eel dish was another cracker, the unexpected sweetness of the apple bringing interest to the classic taste combination of smoke, earthiness and heat.

Our main courses were equally successful. Andrew's roast pork fillet with a wild mushroom and porcini risotto had the potential to be overwhelmingly rich, especially given the addition of some heady truffle oil, but an accompanying watercress and pinenut salad brought levity and equilibrium. My sea bass fillet with potato and poppy seed cake and crab, fennel and tomato salad was equally expert, the unusual spud 'n' seed galette working nicely with the sweet firm fish and crunchy, punchy salad.

A bottle of a wonderful Schloss Lieser 2005 Riesling, chosen from Andrew Edmunds' excellent mostly Old World list was so zestily fruity it felt effervescent on the tongue. Had we not had to give the table back we would no doubt have also enjoyed a glass or two of something sticky from the long and bargain-laden sweet wine and port selection. Service, from the absolutely delightful, polite and ruggedly handsome Connor, was spot on, and the enthusiasm and warmth of the staff members we met on our way in and out was palpable. Our bill including service came to £72, which sat very comfortably on the price-quality axis.

There's really nothing to fault about Andrew Edmunds. Sure, the closeness of the tables is a love-it-or-loathe-it eccentricity, but its these eccentricities which give the place its particular charm. By the time we'd finished dinner I was in a buoyant mood and the earlier disappointment of not getting in at Polpo had entirely given way to delight that, as a result, I had been driven back into the arms of an old friend. I got to spend time with two of my favourite Andrews that night and concluded that having the odd 'unbookable' restaurant in town might not be such a bad thing after all.

Andrew Edmunds, 46 Lexington Street, London W1F 0LW Tel: 020 7437 5708 No website. 

Leon, Spitalfields

Leon Restaurants and I go back a long way. Back, in fact, to the first few weeks of the first restaurant opening on Great Marlborough Street, when a group of us enjoyed one of the earliest stabs at providing a dinner service in what had until then been only a daytime destination. Unprepared for the high demand, two of Leon's three co-founders, Henry Dimbleby and John Vincent, found themselves press ganged into providing waiter service - which they did with great charm and charming inefficiency - while the third member of the founding triumvirate, Allegra McEvedy, took charge in the kitchen.

I loved Leon from the off; the unique food offering - healthy fast food - and the cracking quality of it; the quirkiness of the decor with its photos of the founders' families; and the feeling of being a member of a very groovy but very egalitarian club. I remember feeling then, very strongly, that Leon would be a success and would not stay a single-shop affair for long. Since then I've eaten many a time at many a Leon; when last autumn I joined Henry and friends to celebrate Leon's fifth birthday, it was at their vast Ludgate Circus flagship, one of the nine-and-counting strong chain that that single-shop affair has grown into.  

Tonight's dinner, with my long-time fellow Leon-lover Kate, was at the Spitalfields branch, a large space in the shiny new restaurant complex which replaced - controversially - a large swathe of the old market. It's a nice room, decked out in Leon's signature style of bold colours, refectory-style tables and chairs, and walls adorned with homely books, photos and travel paraphernalia. A particular quirk is the communal toilet, which divides opinion if not the sexes. 

We'd chosen this branch over our usual - the original - to check out the new menu which Leon are in the process of introducing. The 'new' menu, it transpires, is in fact the old menu served in grazing portions; the Emperor has new clothes, but in smaller sizes. There are ten dishes to choose from, all Mediterranean or north African-influenced and all about £4, a half dozen sides - though how 'grazing dishes' can have 'sides' is a mystery to me - and the same selection of full size soups, salads and wraps as is available throughout the day. There are no main courses as such, so if grazing isn't your thing, you're done for. 

Fortunately Kate and I are not averse to grazing and recognised most of our favourite dishes, albeit miniaturised, on the £25 'Feasting' menu. There's also a slightly smaller 'Classic' set menu at £23; a quick mental tot-up worked out each offers a saving of about 10%. Both are heavy on meat and there's no veggie alternative, which I thought was quite a serious omission. Most of what we ate was very good; chilli con carne was rich and punchy, the grilled chorizo was salty and gorgeously chewy, and Leon mash of sweet potatoes and carrots was unctuous and comforting. Moroccan meatballs, and hummus with Greek flatbread, both Leon staples, were excellent. Less successful was chilli chicken, the dark, cheap thigh meat used tasting almost gamey, and garlic and chilli broccoli which tasted only of broccoli. 

Unsurprisingly, we were too stuffed to contemplate puddings but I can vouch from past experience that the brownie with organic ice cream and lemon and ginger crunch are both sinfully delicious. There's a decent if unexciting wine list, all Old World and with one or two choices available by the 500ml carafe; we chose the one rosé, a L'Emage Shiraz at £15, which was fine. A range of refreshing sounding long drinks, both alcoholic and non, is on offer for non-wine drinkers.

Staff are universally polite and friendly, if engaged only to bring things to your table; along with the 'new' menu, Leon has adopted a new service model, Nando's style, of ordering at the counter with ones table number. I don't like this, but I'm sure there are reasons for it. Our set menu and wine came to under £40, which for the quantity we'd enjoyed and the quality of both the food and its presentation felt very reasonable. Note that if you want to leave a tip - for example, if the food has been brought to your table with particular efficiency - you'll need to find a way of doing it; no money changes hands at your table as bills are paid at the counter and there's no visible tip jar or similar.

I'll declare here, to avoid any accusations of shilling, that I do know Henry moderately well, but my role throughout our acquaintance has always been one of critical parent to his bouncing culinary baby. Leon's come in for a bit of flak lately from some quarters; the food has been criticised as bland - it's not, although much it does rely more on aromatics than seasoning - and the publication recently of comprehensive nutritional information caused more than a few raised eyebrows, mine included, at the calorie content of several dishes. But for all that there may have been growing pains, Leon is a fantastic endeavour, still miles ahead of any competitor for quality, consistency and innovation, and deserves to continue to grow and thrive.

Leon, 3 Crispin Place, London E1 6DW Tel: 020 7247 4369 http://www.leonrestaurants.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