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How can anywhere that has a dish on its menu at £1.10 be bad? I mean, for the same price as a packet of reconstituted, deep fried, hydrogenated pork rind in your local Slug's Head & Vomit, you get anchovies with chick peas in a terrific restaurant in Soho. Well, an anchovy anyway.

The place itself looks a bit distressed; not in a mental anguish way, just in a “you know that a really trendy designer has spent an awful lot of money to make it look as though nobody bothered to spend any money on it” kind of way. And it works supremely well. The tables are small and close together, but, with the old school chairs, mismatched cutlery and glass tumblers for the wine, the whole works together well, when any on their own would just be naff.

As well as the £1.10 anchovy, the pizetta bianca (sort of thin crust pizza-with-white-cheese bits) was excellent, and I was given a second (unbidden for and gratis) helping when they saw that my companion was late and I was saving a piece for her. Polpette (meatballs to you and me) was also good and the fritto misto not at all greasy.

The wine list is not too long, and has about half of the bottles available by 250ml and 500ml sizes, all of which are well priced, with only a few breaking into the £30+ range. In addition, the prosecco is available by the glass as well, and well worth it as a £5.00 alternative to the over-inflated champagne in most other restaurants.

The service is unhurried and friendly (I think we were served by the owner). The dishes are served as prepared, rather than in a set starter, main course way, and are perfect for sharing. Even though we ordered a fair number of plates, the bill was far less than you often get with this style of food, where the danger of over-ordering many small dishes is great (think sushi or tapas).

This is not a destination restaurant, in the same way that Bocca de Lupo has become, and I am sure that people will compare the two, but, other than that they both serve excellent Italian food, they are poles apart. If you care about appearances, have a large expense account or work in media, go to the Wolf. If you like a smaller, fun place where you don't have to take a second mortgage out, come here.

In the rarefied atmosphere of michelin starred restaurants, it is the little things that make the difference between two and three stars. Marcus Wareing has garnered two stars and is clearly on the lookout for a third. The food is excellent, the service attentive without going overboard and the atmosphere the sort of subdued buzz that grand hotel dining rooms were built for. Well, actually, on the latter part the main room is like this; there is also a small anteroom with five tables. I am sure that on most nights this is fine, but when we went, there was a table of five (although is seemed like fifty) braying ingrates, doing their best collective impression of a walrus coloney. Only with more swearing. We asked to be moved to the main room, a service that was executed with the minimum of fuss and no drama, and the atmosphere there was the sort of buzz etc. and so forth.

But still, with all the individual elements in place, somehow it is missing that spark that makes a very good restaurant a truly amazing one.

At the weekends there are three set menus, with the second and third building on the standard “menu du jour”. In France, a menu du jour is of the €12 three courses and a carafe of wine type. Here it is the £80 entry level. No wines (unless you pay another £60 for the sommelier's matching selections). We decided to go with the wine list. List doesn't do justice to this tome, a homage to French wine, with smatterings of Italian and the odd Spainish inteloper. It is, as you would suspect, good at the higher price wines, including the 1961 Petrus at a mere £30k. Fortunatley, there are some lower priced wines, although quite how a Nyetimber is £85 here, when you can get the same wine in Canteen at £39 does seem strange. I understand that the hotel has a huge carrying cost as it has to have a wide selection, but how and why prices differ so markedly is always beyond me. Instead, we settled on a lovely Pommard. Not cheap, but as keenly priced as anything the half an hour trawl through the wine tome could come up with.

As for the food, it was, as you'd expect, almost to a point flawlesly executed. Although the menus are set, there are also a couple of specials on offer, and you can mix and match between the various set menus. So in reality, the choice is pretty broad.

Whilst perusing the menus, with a glass of Billecart Salmon rose from the champagne trolley, some nibbles appeared, the highlight of which was a foie gras mousse sandwich. They like trolleys here: as well as the standard cheese chariot, there was the champagne trolley, the digestif trolley and the chocolate trolley. There may have been more lurking too, but we missed them.

The amuse bouche was a creamy soup with the first of the nights foams, a rich nutmeg. For the first of our “real” courses, I went off-piste with a gorgeous tranche of foie gras and my wife had the marinated mackeral with a huge chunk of white crab meat and a smear of brown. The foie gras came with a rhubarb brioche and cranberry compote. I am not usually one to mix fruit with meat, but the cranberries cut the sweetness of the round of foie gras to perfection.

The second of the evenings foams arrived with the quail. Toast foam is a new one on me. A modernest twist on bread sauce, and a clever accompaniment to the lovely little quail breasts and white beans. I am not sure I'd necessarily have called it a foam, it was more of a cream, but foam (and smear) are very trendy these days. So foam it was. With a tasting menu like this, where all of the courses are pretty much the same size, it is not necessarily the case that the next course was the “main”, but the meat course was lamb, pink on the inside, accompanied by fennel, red pepper and an unadvertised sorrel leaf.

A shared plate of cheese was good, the pre-deserts an unncessary addition that, like the pre-amuse bouche (or even the actual amuse bouche), seems to have become de rigeur at restaurants with pretentions of three stars, and the pear tarte tartine that finsihed off the set elements of the meal absolutely gorgeous.

All in all, a wonderful restaurant, striving to be the very best. I hope Marcus gets his third star. Maybe I have become jaundiced by recent trips to Michel Trama, Olivier Roellinger and Michel Bras, but, at the moment, I am not sure that he has that certain je ne sais quoi that takes it to the ultimate level.

By far the best way to enjoy this restaurant is to sit at the counter and watch the theatre of the kitchen unfold. No sreaming Ramsay fits, but a group of people who genuinely seem to be enjoying themselves, and who are more than happy to take time out to chat with you about what they are doing.

The red and black, dimly lit decor isn't to everyone's taste, and the elevator music should have been left in the lift, but the staff are friendly, the service attentive and the food is supremely good. The tapas size plates are the most fun, with the ability for the kitchen to show what it can do. From simply sliced Iberica ham and basil infused pan con tomate, to foie gras stuffed quail every dish hits the spot, the highlight being pigs trotter on toast with parmesan. This has all the right ingredients: pork; check, cheese; check, bread; check, and the assembly is a small mouthfull or two of pure heaven.

Okay, so there is clearly a downside to the otherwise unending stream of superlatives; the price. Yes, the aforementioned pigs trotter is terrific, but at £12.00 (before 12.5% service) for a pre-starter size, is on the rich side (the tapas range from £9.00 through to a heafty £19.00!). This, however, is relatively sane when compared to the £100 for a main course of spaghetti with white truffle. A TON. For pasta. Here's my advice; get a Sleazyjet flight to Venice, go to Harry's Bar, have the same dish (with much more truffle), a bellini, get back on the plane and keep the change.

So get somebody else to pay, or splurge, but probably not the place to go for if your peckish and have a few quid to spend.

The craze for converybelt sushi has generally lead to overcook, cold rice and average at best sushi and sushimi. Kurumaya's converybelt is always packed with fresh, well prepared food; the uni is lovely, the soft shell crab hand roll a staple and there is always a dish that is not your usual “salmon and tuna”. In fact, unlike so many places, I cannot think of a bad mouthful I've ever had here, and I go a lot. Add to this the exemplary service, and it is a place that it is difficult to find fault with.

OK, it is not inventive, it is not going to win Michelin (or even Squaremeal) stars and it is not the cheapest of lunchtime options in the City (a place not known for its cheapness), but it is the best overall Japanese in the City and, like the previous reviewer, Kurumaya has become my canteen.

I'd add too, that I think recently standards have dropped a little. Nothing too serious, but I've started to think that the fish at Ribon, which has clearly upped it's game recently, is fresher, and overall is a better place for lunch.

The great thing about having no choice is that you get all sorts of things that you would otherwise not know to order; the food was excellent, the service much better than some seem to have experienced and the bill, whilst not cheap, not exactly what you'd call outrageous. Arriving for a late sitting, however, we were surrounded by a somewhat garrulous crowd; the raucous crowd on one side had the good grace to apologise, but the drunken kiwi slumped over our table on the other didn't seem to notice!

A very French bistro feel, from the excellent charcuterie to the surly waitresses.

The food is very modish, with small tasting plates rather than a starter followed by main course feel. The potted shrimp were lovely, even if chef might have been a little heavy-handed with the cayenne, garlic snails were plump and garlicky , smoked eel some of the best I've had, served on a bed of crispy celeriac, and the bavette was gorgeous. This last dish was a gorgeous piece of meat, properly seared on the putside, and properly red in the middle, served in its own pan, with some sauted spuds.

The wine list too is long and well thought through, with every region of France represented, as well as some overseas (and even some new world) intelopers. Prices too are keen – we had a lovely Larmandier Bernier for fifteen notes cheaper than I'd had the same wine at Boundary a few days before.

Not everything was a hit: the duck scratchings were too greasy, but that is a minor complaint when stacked next to the service. OK, it was a little crowded, but that's what the restaurant should want and is no excuse for rude, unhelpful service by waitresses who clearly wished that we'd bugger off and let them smoke and be surly in a sterotypically French way. So we did. Shame, good food is too often ruined by this sort of thing.

Roka is a restaurant that feels like it wants to be in Manhatten; big, buzzy, lots of glass, lots of flames, lots of theatre. Alas, it doesn't quite live up to what it wants to be; the buzz is just a heavy, loud bass beat, making conversation possible only at a shout and the theatre would only work if the substance (the food and service) lived up to form (the glass, the flame etc).

The food is fine, sometimes better than fine, but at £22.50 for the black cod, I don't want fine, I want Nobu good. It isn't. The sushi rice was unforgivably soggy, although the rock-shrimp tempura (thank you again Nobu), was on the excellent side of good. Service too was patchy; it took an age to get served, but then everything turned up quickly. The desert menu appeared rapidly, but the deserts themselves must have been lurking at the Canary Wharf branch, and why is it that trying to get a bill at some places is more difficult than getting the (unordered, and soon removed) glass of sake that abruptly materialised from nowhere?

Roka is referred to as Zuma's baby sister, and in a lot of ways there are similarities. The difference is, Zuma works the buzz, works the theatre and works as a whole. Roka falls short. It probably works best as a group place to go, rather than a couple, as we did, and I certainly didn't envy the couple obviously on an early date at the table next to us.

I really don't mind spending good money on top restaurants. I don't even mind the meal taking hours, but here the bill was stratospherically high and the pace at which the food arrived was more dead slug than live snail.

When it did arrive, the food was gorgeous; the Kaseiki menu offers lots of small, beautifully prepared, beautifully presentated and subtle tasting morsels. The trouble is, you need a hamburger between each course to stave off the hunger pangs, and could easily have time to go and get one from the nearest Burger King, which is, I am reliably informed, in Barnes. Matching with wine too was a mistake – it seemed like such a good idea at the time; lots of different wines and sake to go with the different flavours to which they are perfectly suited. The trouble is, the wine for the next course came immediately after the previous course had been cleared away, so you either sat there thirsty as well as hungry, or drank it in the interminable wait and then had nothing to complement the food.

Yes, we could have come on an off night, but at these prices you cannot afford to have an off few minutes, let alone a whole night.

Unlike some places where the whole experience puts you off, the food was just so good (and the Calpis Martini so unlike it sounds as though it should be), I would go back. this time, I'd sit at the sushi counter though and order as I went along. That way I could make a swift exit if the food was not so swift in arriving.

May 2011

It is always difficult returning to a favoured restaurant to find it changed. I went to the Summerhouse a couple of times last year are really liked its relaxed atmosphere and laid back nosh, as you can see from the review below.

How times have changed. I went again on a Bank Holiday Monday. We had a late booking, but arrived a bit early. The place was heaving. Nonetheless, we were seated straight away. I had asked, when booking, if we could get a waterside table, but was told that there was no booking for this, just turn up and see if you can get one. There were none free, but about 10 minutes after we sat down, a table at the front did come free, so I asked if we could take it. Alas no, others had bagged it. Fair enough, but why then 20 minutes later when we left, was it still empty? Had it been booked?

And yes, we lasted only 30 minutes here. I cannot tell you what the food was like this time, nor what the drink tasted of (not even the tap water) for we were ignored totally for 30 minutes. Not one single waiter (and there were many) found their way to our table. I have never considered waiving my napkin, Michael Winner like to get attention but, after half-a-bleedin’-hour of sitting there watching the surgically enhanced breasts at the next door table carefully take all the batter from her fish, eat the fish and leave the batter and chips, I now know why he does it.

I know I could have said something, but surely I shouldn’t need to? Anyway, when we heard the table behind us moan to the waiter about the 45 minute wait to get their starter, we just knew that it wasn’t going to happen. 30 minutes later we were sitting at the counter in Polpo supping on a Bellini. This is what I said a year ago about Polpo: www.squaremeal.­co.uk/review/Polpo/94079. Unlike the Summerhouse, a second visit a year later only underlines just how superb the place is.

ps as I cannot do a second, separate review with a new set of scoring, I have left the scores from last August about the food and value for money, and amended only those that I actually experienced this time, averaging out the overall and updating service to where it currently lies

August 2010

I am not sure that I fully understand what a “pop-up” restaurant is. Or why. The name “The Summerhouse by the Waterway” and the address “opposite 60 Blomfield Road” hint that this is a transient establishment. Like Selfridges' pop-up restaurant last summer, which was housed in a tent on the roof (a tent of Gerry Cottell proportions rather than boy scout), however, it would be hard to say that the Summerhouse is anything other than a permanent establishment.

Set in a leafy corner of Maida Vale, near Warwick Avenue tube station, this is a brick built, well; building. Ok, it has a clear plastic covered terrace directly on the Grand Union Canal, but it is has not just popped up, nor will it so easily just pop-off. Yes, with the plastic sheeting down, you can see why this might not be so alluring in the winter, but then the Dutch have no trouble with plastic covered terraces on the Amsterdam canals throught the winter, and this year, with the canal frozen over, it would have been a nice change from sitting in front of a fake fire in some anodyne gastro-pub.

Nontheless, we went on a beautiful sunny lunchtime, with the sun reflecting off the tesco bags as they drfted along, being idly pecked at by the coots that hang out under the terrace, clearly looking for their share of the food on offer. Unlike it's sister (or mother?) restaurant just down the road, the Waterway, there is nothing here between the terrace and the canal so, other than looking over the council estate, on a sunny day you could almost be on the Canal St Martin. Almost. On such days you can see why it is so difficult to get a reservation here at the weekend. Mid-week though, it wasn't too difficult and the place was only half full; various chapters of the local branch of the ladies-what-lunch brigade were in, all braying teeth, dyed black roots and leggings. Leggings? Don't these people look in the mirror? Yes, they were trendy once, but nobody out of their teens looks good in them.

The food on offer is standard, no frills fish, with a single vegetarian and a single meat option (steak, of course). We started with perfectly fine squid with a light, but still pleasent, tartare sauce; crispy on the outside, just the right side of chewy on the inside (the squid that is, not the sauce). The main course of fish and chips that we both had was also lovely; firm fish, crunchy batter, good chips. The fact that my companion had ordered the fish pie was a minor point, as the service was so friendly that it was easy to overlook this minor error. Starter prices hover around the £7/8 mark and the mains (other than the whole sea bass) are in their mid- to late-teens.

The wine list too is short and functional, some good prices but £71 for a rose? Please. I know that Domaine d'Ott is uber-trendy, but it is an awfully big ask, even for the self styled “finest rose in the world”.

A great place for a lazy Sunday lunch or, as in our case, a mid-week TBL, given that one of us was between jobs and the other was flying off that evening, so was technically on his way to Heathrow.

It is all too easy to decry LB as having seen better days. Of course it has, but somehow that is not the point. People still pour in, not for the food (heaven help anyone who thinks that this is the epitomy of fine dining), but for the whole experience. Yes, the service is Wong Kei-esq and the food stuck in 1985, but the atmosphere still rocks and the dining room is somehow quaint and cool at the same time.

We started with the fabled spinach souffle with anchovy sauce. Why I don't know; maybe because it is so feted (or rather was, in days gone by). Souffle is supposed to be light, fluffy and airy, not solid. The anchovy sauce was very pleasant, but served merely to mask the blandness of the egg creation.

A main course of lambs kidneys was more like it, perked up with some serious english mustard. The wines are a good selection of reasonably priced bottles, with a fair few by the glass. The coffee is fine too, but the bill leaves you thinking how the hell did that happen? And why?

Would I go again? Of course. If somebody else was paying, I wasn't hungry and somebody more famous than the latest girl to take their top off on BB was there.