A nice central location that is more the preserve of the local offices rather than the tourist set.

As a consequence service is extremely fast, as for those of us that are retired and have time on our hands possibly a little too quick.

Food was very good though, my snail and bacon pie was delicious, very rich and very garlicy.

I was less adventurous with my main, but a good burger cooked well.

Lunch was a £122 with the drinks bill being slightly under half of that amount.

We ate in the gallery restaurant.

All very average, with ok food. Worth the stop if you are in Fortum and are hungry. Certainly not worth a detour.

Service particularly slow, so have plenty of time. For some reason they didn't want to give us our chips, and of the 2 bowls we ordered we managed only to get one, but of course the two were charged on the bill!!

We’ve still got a couple of weeks left of the year, and a few more restaurants to visit! But I would call Viajante my restaurant of the year.

There is no menu per se as they tell you what the food will be, you simply choose 6 or 9 courses (12 by prior request) with a caveat of them asking about dislikes and allergies.

We opted for the 9 courses with matching wines, but with amuse bouche, pre deserts and petit fours it was more like 15 courses, and too many to detail on a review. The courses did range from very good to excellent though, and ever the only problem with a tasting menu is that there is too much (the delicious bread and flavoured butter at the start you must resist to gobble it all up!)

The kitchen is totally open and the front row of tables have their chairs positioned to watch the theatre, which is a calm well run and efficient machine with all the chefs working in harmony. No Ramseyesk outbursts here! My only grumble is that why wasn’t it open when I lived in East London!

I’ve just posted my Dinner by Heston review and there are many similarities in the British food cooked well ethos.
Lamb shank and beef wellingtons were our mains, both good sized portions very well cooked and very delicious.
Pudding was a let down though, sticky toffee pudding was ‘cheffed-up’ but instead of a gooey pudding we got a dry muffin.
The bill weighed in at £188 with service, with about £80 on drinks. Whilst not as good as Heston’s dinner, it was half the price and I’d be much more likely to return here than I would Dinner.

Keen to see the newly renovated interior we opted for lunch at the Savoy grill, which now has very beautiful and opulent surroundings.

As the name would suggest it is very meat/ steak orientated which should delight us carnivores. I opted for the steak, which was very good, well cooked piece of meat, which ticked many boxes.

Where they tripped up though was with dessert, forewarned of the 20 minute wait I opted for the soufflé, after half an hour there was still no sign and waiter had long since stopped making eye contact! Eventually a waiter arrived with an apology and 40 minutes from ordering a ‘soufflé’ arrive, which promptly sagged and resembled scrambled eggs more. I presume they messed the 1st attempt and quite frankly the 2nd attempt too.

The Savoy grill is a little of a it does what it says in the tin sort of place, it does what it does well, just maybe careful with your dessert choice!

After a long time of failed attempts to book the fat duck (really why does he make it so difficult?!) we though we’d try Dinner, so with the gravitas of the Heston’s name appended to the restaurant it brought with it great expectations of a wonderful meal and dining experience.

Salamugundy (Chicken Oysters, Salsify, Marrow Bone & Horseradish cream) was my starter, succulent pieces of chicken, with a delicately spiced horseradish source. Which was quite delicious.

Spiced Pigeon with Ale and Artichokes was my main, again a very good dish.

The Pièce de résistance however was the desert, brown bread ice cream, nothing like or taste brown bread but a delicious unctuous texture that almost had a hint of taste of fois.

As I mentioned at the start there were high expectations due to the Heston association and whilst the dinner was excellent, it didn’t really excite in the way that it might. It certainly is good food done well, but for someone that dines out a lot it wasn’t extra ordinary.

The bill for the two of us came in at £324, getting on for half though was the drinks bill. For me, whilst a good dinner wasn’t interesting enough to warrant the price tag.

A cosy little bistro experience, ideal for a nice lazy lunch. Although away from the cheese platter it was a little surprising that cheese didn’t feature that highly on the menu. Be prepared to spend lots in the cheese room on your way out!

We went to the Square a couple of weeks ago on a Thursday evening. First impressions were of a nice looking restaurant, but very corporate in terms of clientele and the acoustics make for a very loud ambience.

What I personally love about the poshy type of restaurants is all the extra courses that are thrown into the meal, transforming a three course A La carte dinner into an extra special tasting menu experience. In this respect the Square really hit the spot, with a couple of pre-starters, a pre-desert and petit fours.

The meal itself, whilst good was not that memorable as I am having to revert to their web site as an aide-memoire for what I had. Starter was a crab lasagne, which was very nice however. Main was a… actually I can’t remember even looking at the crib sheet, so that probably says it all. My dinner companions went for the wagyu beef which was very pleasant though. But who could forget the dessert, warm fondant with 100’s & 1000’s; a perfectly cooked fondant with extra sauce on top and crispy and tasty sprinkles, don’t worry the 100’s and 1000’s were a home made concoction rather than those found on the end of a Fab lolly!

Service was in keeping with the overall experience, good but not amazing. Service between courses dragged a little and we had to have our petit fours as a carry out as we had to get back to our baby sitter. The other gripe about service was when the waiter poured sparkling water into my glass of still, an easy mistake, but the problem was when he raced off saying he was going to get me a fresh glass, well I’m still waiting for him to come back with it.

The bill for the 3 of us was £430 of which about £150 was drinks and the 3 course menu priced at £90 per head including the service charge.

My over all impression, a pleasant experience but not amazing, worthy of two stars probably not in my opinion, but certainly worth one.

Arriving at Aqua, in the old Dickens and Jones department store building, it is all very swish with the heavy red velvet curtains and subdued lighting. It is here you meet the first receptionist. Then taking the lift to the 5th floor, you come to a 2nd receptionist where you give name and booking all over again, this receptionist take you to the maître d’, who takes your name and booking again and finally sits you down.

It is all very swanky and stylish inside, low lighting and dark woods, the sushi chefs at work in the centre of the restaurant. The bar area and the restaurant full of young and beautiful types, so I upset the tone there!

There is pretty good choice on the menu and they waitress encourages you to share the dishes, as it is more tapas style service with plates arriving when ready rather than coordinated French style of service. So for the four of us, we ordered 4 appetisers and four mains which were more or less served sequentially. This was maybe more down to table size than the kitchen as at most there was room for two dishes at any one time. Interestingly given the lack of space it was only with prompting that it occurred to anyone to take away the empty aperitif glasses away.

The food itself was very good, sweet and moist blackened cod every bit as good as Nobu, soft shell crab tempura, pork belly and Cray fish, beef with foie gras all delicious and memorable dishes. For me all the dishes were excellent, and certainly looked as beautiful as it tasted. It is a bit of an Atkins meal though, as the rice is a little incongruous with the meal as the lack of sauces and its minimalist nature precludes loading up your rice bowl as you might in less contemporary restaurant.

The desserts were equally delicious; I had small doughnuts served on yuzu curd, a thick lemony sauce, with a side dish of chocolate praline mouse. This was super delicious.

From a food point of view I thoroughly enjoyed all the dishes, and the sequential serving and sharing of each plate resulted in a more of a tasting menu experience. Service was a little slow to get started but soon moved fast and efficiently, perhaps a little too fast, they turn the tables and we were moved on before any coffees could be requested.

The ambience for me was a little dark and loud, but if I was single and a little younger I could see how this might appeal. My other gripe would be that everyone seems to make a bee line for the terrace for drinks, despite being mid July it was a chilly evening so the constant coming and goings, door slamming and cold drafts was a little annoying too. Incidentally if you do order drinks at the terrace bar, do take a book or a newspaper as it is a very long wait as the bar staff making the cocktails like to be seen intricately crafting cocktails rather than actually serving drinks, the one I watched getting made involved the glass being turned on the counter for a number of turns for no apparent reason.

For the four of us our final bill came to £440.10, of which £196 was drinks, so not at all unreasonable value. For the food I would return but the trendy ambience i.e. loud and dark, would put me off a return visit.

When paying the bill though do watch out for the double tipping when they hand you the machine, service would have been 7/10 if not for that.

Well obviously we were excited to be going to Jason Atherton’s recently opened restaurant, the amount of media hype, rave reviews and our own love both Maze and Maze Grill, first impression were astounding, a lovely space and a menu that seemed to combine the best of Maze and the Grill.

The menu seemed to be spawned from Jason’s recent past restaurants, which was no bad thing. Having read the reviews here and reading the restaurant’s own web site we asked about how many starters we should have and about making them into a tasting menu as the menu itself suggested, however we were told that they were really a traditional restaurant and that we should have a starter and main only.

So we plumped for the full English and the foie gras, for starters. The full English consist of a poached egg yolk, which to be fair was super yummy, with a tiny bit of bacon on top and a little mushroom and tomato puree but due to its lack of size was gone in less than two spoonfuls. The foie was a little more generous, two nice slices of foie pate with toast, a safe but perhaps boring choice.

For mains we had halibut with paella, which was by far the highlight of the evening, a succulent moist piece of fish, and the paella was perfect and an absolutely gorgeous seafood flavour. I myself went for a steak with duck fat chips and salad. As steaks go it wasn’t bad and nearly as good as Gaucho.

Desserts started with disappointment, with all the “you must visit the dessert bar” talk prior to our visit we thought this would be an interesting take or twist on serving desserts. But given how it has 6 seats and the restaurant has 100+ covers at a guess, it is never going to work as planned. So we were given dessert menus at table and both opted for the cheesecake, which was served with a cheffy take, the cheese topping in a long square strip on the plate with the biscuit ‘base’ crumbled around it. A good taste but I would have preferred it served in a more traditional style.

Whilst dining we were however a little perplexed as to quite what it was that the restaurant was trying to achieve in terms of style, but looking at the restaurant’s web site now it describes itself as “A contemporary bistro offering deformalised fine dining” which I think they failed to pull off. The menu varied from deconstructed English breakfast, 60c poaching to steak and chips, I think it was a little too eclectic trying to merge the high end dining with bistro dining. While I originally said the menu seemed to be born of Maze and Maze Grill it was unfortunately proved to be in an illegitimate back stairs sort of way. The mains were all served with an array of unneeded props, for a bistro, my 9 chips were served in a small silver vase, the steak on a bread board and salad in a bowl, nothing actually arrived on the plate! Similarly the paella was served in a small copper pan, which might have its place in a fine dining restaurant but not a bistro. Not only that but the tables aren’t huge so with all the paraphernalia on the table there isn’t a lot of room for anything else.

The petit fours was a similarly over the top kind of affair, that would have been at home in a fine dining restaurant but in the confines of the “contemporary bistro” was again a little stuffy and out of place. After at least three waiters coming and going from the table to nudge plates and moving bottles away from the table a huge cantilevered box turned up full of chocolates, a large tray was placed on the large cleared area in the middle of the table, my greedy gene was twitching wildly at this point but that was brought to quick arrest as a tiny platter was placed on the tray. Chocolates were then put onto the platter, a few put back in a taken out again as the waiter apologised as he “struggled with the light” and the identity of the chocolates. Incidentally petit fours (£4) weren’t offered when coffee orders were taken, it was only when we remembered to ask for them having seen them listed on the dessert menu.

The Pollen street social tried its best to be the best of both of fine dining and bistro experience, but unfortunately failed on both, although did of course succeed on fine dining prices with our meal coming in at £255.95, although £168 was the drinks bill.

It has been a while since I’ve visited one of the Gavlin restaurants, and if I am honest it was more the clients’ choice than mine. Whilst I’ve enjoyed the food in both the Bistro De Lux and Window I’ve never really been blown away by them and that we were out on a Saturday night it seems a little wrong to me to be in the City when I don’t have to be.

Without doubt it is a very impressive building once inside, the huge vaulted ceiling and immaculately set tables, and you do spend the first few minutes just looking around at the amazing space.

We kicked of with a few cocktails in the adjacent café, and then went on to dinner in the restaurant itself. We opted for the tasting menu (£70) accompanied with the matching wines (£35). This encompassed crab lasagne, for me the best part of the meal, sea bass with lovely crisp skin, vegetable risotto, beetroot and goats cheese salad (the only let down course as a little incongruous with the whole meal I thought), fillet steak with potato fondant and creamed spinach all finished off with a superb tarte tatin. There were no amuse bouches or pre-desserts though, it is very much what you see on the menu is what you get, which is fine but detracts from the spoilt and pampered feeling some restaurants give to you.

Service wise was ok and the whole friendly and efficient, albeit a little too effusive with a queue of waiters and maitre d’s lining to talk to my dinner companion as he’d been there a ‘few’ times before. Good skills from the sommelier remembering the wine he usually drank. On the negative side, one course we had to chase for the matching wine and napkins were sometimes folded and sometimes not, but only minor infractions really.

All in all it was very pleasant, and for the standard of food and service £105 (plus 12.5%) a head for the tasting menu was good value, whilst I’d probably not race back I’d certainly recommend the place especially as the City is so lacking in top end restaurants.

We’ve often wandered across the park and had tea and cake at the café, and looked longingly at the always booked adjacent green house. The lack of evening opening always hampering our booking, but it is all in the back of a green house in a garden centre, so one does have to make allowances. In fact in deference to its rustic charm the restaurant is the café and the café is the tea house.

The setting is certainly a large amount of the appeal of the restaurant, dirt floors, waiters in wellies, old church chairs, and old worn tables that have seen a lot of life. This is all in the back of the main green house which is half the garden centre shop and the rear half is the café, where you happily sit amongst the foliage.
The rustic feel translated into the food, with good hearty portions, coked impeccably. For starters we had lobster tagliolini and speck risotto, a super succulent lobster claw with the pasta and the risotto was delicacy creamy with a lemon zing.

Mains were veal and poussin, the veal was an almost tagine affair in a bowl full of broth and preserved lemon, the veal super moist and succulent, my critique here would be to add a couple of potatoes as there was a little lack of carbs and a spoon for the broth. The roast poussin, was similarly super moist and cooked with a lovely crisp skin, but again maybe missing a carb element to the plate.

Deserts were a chocolate panancotta with caramel sauce, where my only critique here could be that maybe it was a little too big as very heavy and rich, but as I am very greedy I finished it with a flourish. The lemon tart was also superb, crumbly crust and just the right amount of lemon sharpness.

Service was super friendly and efficient, orders were taken promptly and first course arrive within 20 minutes. The whole meal only took an hour and a half, so all quick enough without being rushed.
The bill split £103.5 for food and £26.85 for drinks (3 glasses wine, water and coffee) with a further 12.5% added for service, which for a Michelin stared restaurant, or indeed any restaurant serving this quality of food, it represents great value.

The only down side, is that it is a bit difficult to reach, we had to drive (hence small drinks bill) which due to limited parking they do actually discourage and as I mentioned it is a lunch time only venue, so limits our desire to return very soon.

Following the current vogue for ‘staycations’, we decided to have a week in Norfolk and as luck have it (ok maybe a little engineered) we stayed near to Morston and more importantly Morston Hall as they are quite proud in boast the only Michelin restaurant within a 50mile radius.

Dinner is at a set time, arrive for 7:30 for canapés and dinner is served at 8pm, there is no choice except the set menu, which I could see causing difficulties especially for those with sea food allergies.

On arrival we shown to the conservatory for drinks, which was accompanied by (3!) canapés including a delicious tempura lobster claw. We were then shown to our table in another conservatory, the tables were well spaced throughout the restaurant so you were neither on top of each other or having to listen to some boorish conversation on and adjacent table.

We went through about 8 courses including, crab salad, sea bass in broth, quail egg scotch egg and roast quail (the best course for me), roast pork with super crispy crackling, rhubarb mousse and rhubarb soufflé. All of which was perfectly cooked and tasting very well.

The wine options were also very good and reasonable, a sheet of bin ends for £20 and recommend wines at £25 were pushed over the wine list of more costly wines.

The service was a little hit and miss, whilst quite attentive and efficient I am not sure I liked the thought of the waiter holding the next table’s dinner as they introduced the course to our table a bit to canteen style for my liking, we missed the bread coming around due to a lavatory visit and had to ask for the return of the bread waiter and petit fours were meant to be served with our coffee and when we asked for ours that had been forgotten we were initially told they had ran out but when we explained none had been served yet they miraculously did have some after all. On the plus side, when they noticed my wife didn’t like the rhubarb mousse a couple of strawberry ones quickly appeared, so double mousse course for me!

All in it was a very good experience and if in that part f the world again I would revisit and not just because of the 50 miles to the next Michelin restaurant. It was £169 all in with a £25 bottle of wine, being used to London prices it was in my opinion very reasonable.

The rave reviews abound in the press along with Opera Tavern coming from a pedigree stable of the Salt Yard and Dehesa made for much anticipation and excitement.

The lunch stared well with the very welcoming Maitre D’ come waiter, who took us too our table. One of the few criticism I’d have, is that the tables failed the fat man test, they are rather snugly placed so a struggle for anyone passing in-between especially those of us with a larger girth.

We had eight different tapas, doubling up on the scallops and fois burgers. These were served sequentially more in tasting menu style than loading the table with tapas, I am not sure if this was dictated by style or table size.
The much raved about fois burgers were moist and delicious and probably the best burger I have had, although the taste of fois was a little lost. Cheese filled courgette flowers smothered in honey were sublime, confit of belly pork was melt in the mouth with a nice crisp crackling. The scallops perfectly cooked as was the duck livers special, in fact every dish we had was superb and spot on in cooking and taste.

Already amply filled we had to engage the greed gene for cheese and desert, who can turn down a truffle Pecorino, served with flat breads which is so much better than crackers or ordinary bread.

For desert it was a biter chocolate sorbet with sabayon and chocolate truffles. The sorbet was delicious and a great end to the meal. The truffles well were a little more suited to petit fours and indeed did go well with the espressos.

All in for two people it was £150 of which £65 was drinks (beer, wine, water and coffee). I would certainly recommend a visit and I am looking forward to returning very soon.

Tucked away in a small alleyway just off Knightsbridge you’d be unlikely to stumble on this place. Itself a long narrow, and truth be told slightly cramped restaurant.

The service was spot on from the start, a warm welcome from all the waiting staff, drink orders quickly taken and delivered. Then attentive service through out the meal, with reassuring updates ‘I’ll be over in moment to take our order’, ‘your main is about 5 minutes away’, which is nice as you don’t sit there wondering.

The food was also excellent, snails and warm pate were our starters, the buttery herbyness of the snails and the rich deep taste of the pate were both amazing. For main we shared the fois gras stuffed chicken, super succulent roast chicken on a bed of green beans, made all the more delicious and succulent by the portions of fois gras in the pot. We shared a cheese course, three strong French cheeses served with bread. Then a little maxed out food wise I had ice cream to finish, great intense flavours, while my wife went for the chocolate torte, very rich very chocolaty very yum.

The wine list was a good balance between cheap and moderately priced wines, weighted towards French producers as you might expect in a French Bistro.

Our bill came to a bit over £200, but a good half was the drinks bill, so very reasonably priced and very much worth a visit.