Best restaurants in Wandsworth

A faithful servant of the Chinese culinary cause in the London area for more than 25 years, Good Earth is reckoned to be a ‘dependable performer’ – according to fans who like their food without voguish risk-taking or frippery. The kitchen plays it straight, dishing up a raft of old-wave Cantonese standbys ranging from honey-glazed spare ribs and crispy won tons to steamed sea bass with ginger and spring onions, lemon chicken and beef in oyster sauce. Also look for regional variations and interlopers in the shape of Thai satays, Szechuan prawns and spicy lamb with bean paste, lemongrass and ginger. Predictably, jade busts, gilded sculptures, ornate scrolls and traditional paintings provide a flamboyant backdrop to proceedings. Good Earth also has ‘express’ branches in Wimbledon, Richmond, West Hampstead and Wandsworth specialising in takeaways and local deliveries.

“Reassuringly polished in every way” says an admirer of Bruce Poole’s remarkable restaurant, while another deems it “an all-time favourite at the top end”. We’re also enamoured of Chez Bruce’s sense of style, its neighbourly virtues and the fact that it can regularly deliver inspired Michelin-starred food at egalitarian prices. As a dressed-down local eatery of the best sort, its gusty Euro-inspired food pleases, excites and soothes in equal measure, from starters of trotter sausage with warm summer beans and confit rabbit to desserts such as the much-vaunted crème brûlée or pistachio meringues with lemon verbena and raspberries. In between, the kitchen’s big-hearted approach might yield roast cod with olive oil mash, Provençal tomato and gremolata or rump of lamb with stuffed tomato, sweetbread ragoût and courgette tarte fine – manna indeed for the well-fed burghers of Wandsworth. The magnificent cheeseboard is also a class act in its own right. Some feel Chez Bruce’s new layout is a tad “cramped” and it’s clear that pressure of numbers can occasionally impact on the kitchen, but impressively professional staff are always on top of things. In contrast to the “delightful small menu”, the wine list is an all-encompassing encyclopaedic tome offering diversity, style and quality in spades.  

A useful neighbourhood restaurant, where the prices are appealing, the cooking reliable and the wine list good value. There are occasional blips in service, which can be fretful and forgetful, and the background music is sometimes ‘brash’, but complaints are minor. Food is given more importance at Brinkley’s Kitchen than in other branches of this wine-bar and off-licence group. The chefs have an impressively broad repertoire, from homemade focaccia and goats’ cheese ravioli, to Thai green curry, via burgers and crab cakes. Although the wine isn’t as obviously inexpensive as at other Brinkley’s outlets, BK still offers very good deals, with a bottle of 2009 Jadot Mâcon-Villages costing a mere £15. Such value, together with well-priced set lunches, keeps the place busy during the day when many places in the vicinity are empty.