Editor’s Picks

Regulars from the Hanway Place original will recognise the ice-cool aesthetic, the insouciant poise and the top-class food and drink offering, only on a grander, more-monied scale. Afterall, why change a winning formula? The new site spans two floors, bigger restaurant downstairs, with a smaller but not inconsequential ground floor which may become the place to have lunch. The same ‘sexy’ vibe has been maintained, fostered by an edgy soundtrack, wooden ‘cage’ latticework, back-lit electric blue glass and moody lighting from hanging halogen lights. It all works really well: lots of atmosphere but not so much to hinder conversation or suffocate intimacy. Well-briefed staff – notably waitresses dressed in fuschia pink – seem to have hit the ground running, conveying all manner of sweet, salty and savoury Szechuan dishes from classic signatures like roasted mango duck with lemon sauce and soft-shell crab deep fried in the lightest of batters to new concoctions like black-truffle roast duck and what seemed like endless blue abalone dishes. Some of the most successful are the simplest – take for example the crunchy fresh steamed vegetables, a triumph of texture, timing, simplicity and flavour. Plenty of opportunities to offload sackfuls of money, of course, but if you take care and don’t over order you won't need a second mortgage. Great for a furtive afternoon or playful night. Stellar wine list too. Destined to be the place to eat in 2011.

It’s not often that when I sit down to post a review on SM I can so vividly remember what the food was that I had without having to crib from the restaurants web site, so suffice to say the food was outstanding.

I started with restaurant’s signature Fois Gras Crème Brulee, rich Fois Gras pate topped with a sweet caramelised crunchy top. The only gripe would be that it is a large portion and you want to eat it all not leaving room for main!

The Osso Buco of Monkfish (I had to ask, served on the bone) with shellfish broth, was superb, the fish moist and succulent and the broth would of made a lovely soup starter on it own.

Then desert it only got better, the Chocolate Assiette, rich chocolate ice cream and mouse, a mini chocolate fondant with chocolate oozing from it’s core, a white chocolate Mille-feuille, passion fruit twille and a large chocolate disc. Was a delightful way to finish the meal, just pushing you over the sated barrier.

That was the food, as for the rest of the experience… the service was pleasant enough, efficient with out been overly fussy. The tables are so close I’m not sure how one would manage to get out for the lavatory during the meal, I had to ask twice that the adjacent table be move more than the allowed 3 inches from our table.

I think the sommelier missed that his new venture is a bistro with starters of around £12 and mains of around £24, rather than the Michelin stared Le Gavroche, there was a couple (literally) reasonably priced bottles on the menu but quickly got into the 60/70s and hundreds, even thousands. In fact there were more £1000+ bottles to choose from than <£50 bottles. It is all horses for courses, if I go to a bistro I expect good value wine to go with my good valued meal, if I want high end I’ll go Michelin.

The bill came to £370 for the four of us, with two £71 bottles of wine making up a substantial part of it. For me it was lovely food, but the rest of the gripes would deter me from returning.

Walking into the Dorchester is always walking into a world of craziness… Even on a Wednesday lunchtime, there were paparazzi outside fighting over who got to be closest to the ridiculous and expensive looking cock extension that someone was emerging from. The Grand Dame of London's grand society hotels, it now has the propensity to resemble mutton dressed as lamb, like someone has taken an elderly but refined lady and dressed her as a high end Russian call girl. Anything that doesn't move has been plumped up, gilded or had a mirror attached to it.

There are multiple restaurants throughout the Dorchester, breathily calling their opulence out as you walk down the Promenade in the centre of the hotel. You can also ‘enjoy’ afternoon tea along this boardwalk though quite why anyone would choose to enjoy afternoon tea along this stretch, somewhere between Brighton Pier and an explosion in Harrods, I do not know. They have awards though (so I've been told) and there's a better chance of seeing who's just climbed out of the shiny mid-life crisis in the front. But there's the rub. The people here aren't having a mid-life crisis, or even spending their children's inheritance. They're here, from around the world, because spending £36 on a cup of tea and some cakes is perfectly normal, and dropping a ton on lunch for one (without wine) just isn't something that you think twice about. It certainly isn't worth some of the prices you'd get charged but the overall experience is perfection – and people will pay for perfection.

After the gold explosion of the lobby, the (relatively) understated calm of Alain Ducasse came as a blessed relief, I felt like my eyes could breath again. Aside from the floor to ceiling crystal shower curtain (a six person V VIP table separated by a crystal sheet and few quid on the bill), the tone is muted light wood and grey anonymous elegant. After the overblown opulence of the adjoining corridor this is definitely in it's favour.

The parade of inevitable extras started as we sat with herb parcels in filo pastry, in size and texture no different to warm Scampi Fries, deliciously salty and very more-ish though. These arrived along with a selection of perfectly seasoned choux pastry puffs. The black pepper variant was especially successful. An amuse of heirloom tomato mousse was less inspiring though a handy palate cleanser.

Oddly despite the prices, four items on the short menu came with hefty £10 supplements. My Scottish LANGOUSTINE salad with coral jus (their capitalisation, just in case the oligarchs don't get the main ingredients…) was one of these. Assuming a £20/£35 split on that £55 set price for two courses, that supplement brought the salad to a punchy £30. Don't get me wrong, langoustines that do well at school pray to end up on a plate like this. Some of the sweetest shellfish I've ever had, with an earthy jus served over strips of seasonal vegetable. The dish worked. But for £30, I don't know what else it could have offered, short of trained prawns that danced their way out of the pot and onto my plate. Will stop whinging about money now…

I followed this with the roasted rib, saddle and kidney of MILK FED LAMB, served with perfectly cooked, roasted purple artichokes and new potatoes and a scattering of soft garlic croquettes. These were a revelation. The size of jelly gums, they yielded a perfect soft garlic infused paste under their crisp shell. The meat was cooked medium and fell apart. Technically one of the finest takes on this dish I've had, with a wonderful clarity of flavour.

The Flying Manc had the roasted native LOBSTER, seasonal vegetables and macaroni served as a tiny raft of gratinated tubes. Again, simple perfection in ingredients and preparation. The showmanship ran through to the array of petits fours served with our coffee, macaroons, tiny dark walnut studded chocolate nibs and a variety of chocolates and sweets. One of my hosts ordered a lemon verbena tisane, the leaves cut from the plant in front of us, served with a sense of theatre.

The service throughout was flawless, in every sense of the word. The staff were attentive, knowledgable (the Pinot Noir selected as an accompaniment to my lamb isn't what I would have picked, but worked a treat) and unobtrusive. There is a discernible, hugely positive difference between here and many of the one star restaurants I've eaten at. Does the restaurant justify a third star? I couldn't say I was competent or experienced enough to judge that, but for all elements it was a meal striking in its perfection throughout, the clientele were certainly happy to pay for this perfection, and I was honoured to eat it (even if I won't necessarily be taking my own wallet back there..)

We headed into Mayfair for Claude Bosi's slightly more gentrified and experimental take on French cuisine. The two starred Hibiscus was upended from foodie Mecca Ludlow and the chef has stuck to the kitchen, resisting the temptation to turn businessman and expand brand Bosi.

An imposing and genial man, Chef Bosi can't be missed, arms folded, ready with a joke or retort, while his sharp eyes scan the room. He looks almost at odds with the refined and delicate food he serves in the small, unfussy space on Maddox Street. You'd expect rugby player hands the size of hams to be more at home with big meat butchery or at least the more rustic cuisine of the region, however it's clear in his cooking that he possesses a surgeon's delicacy.

There's a fussy attention to detail as high as you'd expect from any two starred chef. The chicken was slow poached then roasted, arctic rolls of meat served with a rough mushroom filling. The white bean came with a kick of lime, but the other flavours of peanut and ginger, allegedly present, were too subtle for my palate. Despite that, I could have eaten the whole thing again. It went very well with a light Rioja.

If the Gaucho Grill is the 18 stone bully of the Argentinian Steak House scene, kicking sand in everyone's face and making you think that they invented the art of grilling meat, then Buen Ayre is definitely the speccy nerd. Except that this speccy nerd really knows how to look after himself.

If ever a man were born with a steak knife in his mouth, then that man must be Buen Ayre's co-owner, John P. Rattigan. Born to expat Irish parents, a nation not slouching when it comes to fine cattle husbandry, on a cattle ranch outside Buenos Aires, he eventually moved to the UK to set up Buen Ayre. His title is not Chef, but Asador – the title given to those Argentines who shoulder the heavy responsibility for the BBQ – the high priest who officiates over the holiest holy of Argentine cuisine.

Buen Ayre is a steak restaurant. That much is clear. There is no point going here unless you too worship at the altar of meat. 45 covers only, it could sit quietly in the corner of one of Gaucho's barns. They run two sittings, 6.45pm and 9pm, and I'd advise the later one… trying to stagger through this quantity of meat in 2 hours is a challenge.
The centre point of the rustic Hackney restaurant is the authentic parilla that takes pride of place in the bijoux open-plan kitchen. It's a huge metal grill, custom built in Argentina, on which the slabs of beef are stacked before being lowered onto a base covered in glowing charcoal. The sight of the grill, a bovine version of the Spanish Inquisition, groans with meats and sausages and serves to highlight why you're not here for the salad. I would describe the rest of the restaurant, but dear reader, I didn't notice it. Wood? Maybe some pictures? Sod it, I was here for the meat…

Bread (standard white baguette and a couple of Jacobs crackers) was rescued utterly with a heavenly mix of blue cheese and butter to spread. God knows how good that would have been on nice bread. It came with a brace of homemade empanadas; crumbly buttery pastry cases like spicy Cornish pasties enclosing fresh, hot fillings, designed to take the edge off our hunger. I couldn't stop with the blue cheese mix, determined as I was not to ruin the steak to follow.

We went for the Parillada Deluxe. A metal tray heated over some of those charcoals, served to your table with a selection of steaks, sausages and cheese (yes, cheese, I'll come back to that). The tray arrived dwarfing the diminutive server, the pair of steaks stacked precariously over the grill. The deluxe comes with a 14oz sirloin and an 11oz rib-eye, both served the rare side of medium rare (to the possible detriment of the fattier rib-eye), sizzling slightly on the plate. If this wasn't enough, the grill also contains two large sausages, disappointingly dry this time but I've been assured that this is a rarity, and four nuggets of a homemade spicy, crumbling black pudding. And a disc of creamy provolone cheese with a topping of dried herbs, sizzling away in a corner of the plate, pulled away in artery threatening lumps. Nice as it was, it felt somewhat extraneous, like they were really trying to fill you with as much fat as you could take. Vital, tasty, life affirming fat for sure, but I felt towards the end of the marathon a little like a force-fed goose. The meat for the record was good. Very good. And certainly one to wave under the nose of anyone who has ever uttered the sentence, “I never bother with steak, it's all too samey for me”. I won't mention the char, or the marbling, or any of the other phrases that confirmed meatheads will bandy around, but will confirm that the flesh was deep red throughout and had the most beautiful, almost sweet, taste.

We didn't have time for desserts, feeling slightly rushed at the end of our time slot. It's unlikely we'd have had room for any, but the option would have been nice. A swift espresso then instead, before rolling off into the Hackney night. I'll be back, and will find it hard to go back to the Gaucho after this. Have a look, you won't be disappointed.