Lola & Simón

This charming, split-level café-restaurant – the brainchild of a Kiwi & an Argentinian – has become a Ravenscourt Park favourite. In the ground-floor café, homemade cakes prove tempting to yummy mummies & laptop-tapping professionals; upstairs, serious food is served in well-groomed, convivial surroundings. As you’d expect, there’s a southern hemisphere slant to proceedings: coffee is a matter of pride, & the restaurant menu is peppered with choices from the owners’ homelands. Dinner might include a selection of empanadas, or green-lipped mussels in white-wine sauce, followed by New Zealand lamb or pampas-reared steak, perhaps with homemade ice cream for afters. The New World also dominates the good-value wine list, which is helpfully divided up by style. Breakfast & lunch are served with the same easy-going allure, capped by breezy, chatty staff.