Best London Restaurants---Page 1

The names that move are world-class for food, wine and service.    These are top-quality places, top value---but NOT top price.    British,, French, Seafood, Spanish, Cuban, Arabic, Chinese, Indian, other SE Asian, Turkish, Wine Bars, Other   Addresses in grey boxes are branches that we have not visited, yet.

Because London is the world's top city for theatre, we have marked (in bold green) the closing times of restaurants that stay open late enough for dinner after the theatre.    We have taken into account travelling time from West End Theatres.

Top value for money places are in bold green in the price column

French

Opening Hours

Location (U=nearest Underground station)

Phone

Was la Tante Claire.   The top French restaurant---everything perfect.    Beautiful décor, well-separated tables, excellent service, top wines.    Cooking brings out the full flavours of everything, in every course.    It is always a wonderful complex of flavour, taste, texture---often unusual combinations of these.   Amuse-gueules and petits fours are small, additional courses.   Unlike many restaurants, the menu is written very simply---not long lists of all the herbs and how they were put together.   Two rosettes in Michelin.   The £ 20 lunch, with plenty of choice, is London’s best bargain for this quality.    Must book.    Air-con.   Convenient after West End theatre.  

à la carte 100-150

1230- 1345

1900- 2300

Closed Saturday lunch + Sunday

(U: Hyde Park Corner or Knightsbridge)

Absolutely superb for food, wines, ambience, service.    An 1838 country house, with 35 acres of beautiful grounds, the Beale Arboretum, lovely conservatory, dining room, lounge.    Log fires, portraits, antiques.   Photographs of famous guests (including Tony Blair).   The wine waiter will talk to you knowledgeably about wines from all over the world.    The chefs produce food in which the flavours and textures are superbly blended.    The presentation is so attractive one may hesitate to apply a knife, fork or spoon.   Examples of dishes are: Terrine of duck liver with orange, poached pears and green salad.   Potted brown shrimps with caviar and shallott dressing.    Breast of guinea fowl and carrot and parsnip rösti, with creamed celeriac and a juniper and gin sauce.   Fillet of red mullet on crab risotto with gazpacho sauce and crispy herbs.   Grilled Dover sole with sautéed potatoes, French beans, broccoli and creamed fish sauce.    Superb desserts, like millefeuille of caramel Bavarois with stewed apple layered with caramelised filo pastry or selection of citrus desserts (orange sorbet, lemon tart, lime parfait) or white and dark chocolate mousse with cappuccino tartlet.   Wide range of cheeses, including Scrumpy Sussex, Cornish Yang, Cowston Bassett Stilton, Hereford Hop, Double Gloucester, Brie.   If you're vegetarian, there is one starter and one main course, and the chef will make whatever you fancy.   The service is prompt, considerate, but not intrusive.    The flagship of a family business that has been in catering for well over 200 years--- and has very much kept up with the times in terms of cuisine.    Proper cocktails.    On the northern boundary of London and also rated as the top hotel in Hertfordshire.    Must book.

Free amuse- gueules to start, petits fours with coffee/tea

Every day lunch, tea and dinner

1230- 1400 and   1915- 2130 for orders but you can linger at least 2 hours longer-- it is an hotel, so never closes.

(U: Cockfosters + 1 mile (1.6 km) walk, bus or taxi)

1.5 miles/2.4 km south of exit 24 on M25

Their Web Site

Fax 0-208 216 3937

Superb nouvelle cuisine-ish, excellent modern ambience, very good service.   Magnificent wine list.   Cocktails.   The à la carte menu has amazing combinations of food and flavourings, which are always strong, clearly distinguished and excellent textures + flavours.   Examples are: Wild mushrooms on toasted brioche with truffle oil, soft poached egg and red wine jus, chicken and foie gras boudin on braised red cabbage with juniper jus.   Mustard and tarragon glazed crayfish tails in tartlet with chopped field mushrooms and sweet pimento dressing.   Stuffed saddle of rabbit wrapped in Parma ham with pearly barley and roasted parsnip risotto.    Roasted rump of lamb on sliced potatoes braised in cream and garlic with gremoulata.  White chocolate tart with bitter chocolate sauce.   Tulip of summer berries with honey icecream and raspberry coulis.    The table d'hôte menus are much, much simpler.  Must book at peak times.    Eight good veg dishes.   Air con.   Very convenient before/after West End theatre.

à la carte 25-40

1200- 1500

1730- 2400

Sunday 1200- 2300

Pianist 2000- 2400

Between Covent Garden, the Aldwych and the Strand

(U: Covent Garden)

fax- 0-207 836 4123

Unexpectedly in Palmer's Green, this is a real French bistrot.    Everything is cooked here, including amazing desserts.   Superb meat, fish/shellfish, veg dishes.   Desserts include fruit tarts, pot au chocolat avec orange (Cointreau), pear poached in red wine with nuts in its core.   Menu changes every 2-3 months.   Sauces, flavours, textures are really French.   So are the ambience, pictures on walls, and service.    Good selection of wines, including some excellent, cheap ones from SW France (mainly unknown outside that region).   You would not be surprised if you found this bistrot in Paris.   At lunchtime, there is an amazing offer of a choice from six main dishes, plus glass of wine/ beer/ soft drink, plus coffee for 5.95.   For dinner, if you arrive by 1830 and leave by 2000 you get 20 % discount from the à la carte.    Regular news letter tells about special offers.   Must book for dinner.

11.95 three course.

A la carte 15-25

1200- 1500

1830- 2300 (2230 Sun)

Closed Monday

(U: Wood Green + bus/taxi 2m/3km.   Suburban line King's Cross- Palmer's Green)

British

Attractively decorated and furnished small place (seats 20) with wood floors, tables, chairs.     Provides "Traditional and Innovative British Fayre" for breakfast & brunch, lunch, afternoon tea, dinner.   Children's menu (available in courtyard in good weather).   Also six sandwiches available.    Examples of main dishes are luxury fish pie (salmon, cod, haddock), Irish stew, chicken in red wine gravy, Glamorgan (veggie) sausages and mash, sirloin steak with mushroom brandy sauce, rösti potatoes topped with bacon, mushroom and poached egg with tomato and tarragon sauce, Aberdeen Angus mince and tatties, sticky toffee pudding with strawberry and icecream, regional cheese selection.   Lot of veggie choices.    Portions are substantial.   Very nice wines.     Excellent service by ladies.   Everything we've eaten has been excellent, and imaginatively presented.   Advisable to book.

7.95 three course.

A la carte 15-25

Closed after lunch Sunday and Monday

Arabic

The top Arabic (Lebanese) restaurants, with excellent wines.    Very extensive menus (41 starters, 22 main courses).   It can be good to eat a large selection of starters (mezes) and move straight to sweets.    Starters cover meat, fish, cheese, veg, beans, salads, etc.   Excellent barbecued quail (firri) main course, with garlicky yogurt sauce.    Best sweets are the lovely Arabic pastries (baklawa, katayef, etc), with honey, nuts, dried fruit, etc;  also good milky pudding (mouhallabia).    Excellent Lebanese wines (Ksara, Kefraya).   Lot of veggie options.   Air-con.    Very convenient before/after West End theatre.  

Edgware Road is in a basement, live Arabic music after 2230 hours for £ 5.50.    Beauchamp Place is smaller, good for young people.    Upper Berkeley Street is more of a café-- same food, smaller menu.   We prefer Seymour Place, quieter, nice ambience;  some tables outside in summer.

For over 20 years, service has been excellent.   

Their Web site

until 0030

Seafood

The important thing is to buy very fresh seafood--- all these places do.    I was born and brought up in a major seaport.    My grandmother used to walk 2 miles (3 km) to the harbour and select the best fish/shellfish.    But, if she bought from the morning's catch, we had to eat it for lunch--- she regarded it as inedible by dinner-time.    It is almost impossible in England to buy seafood as fresh as that for your home, today--- which is why it is well worth eating out in a good seafood place, where they have been to the market only hours' ago.

Lovely, French-style, seafood restaurant, canteen and bar--- seats 210.    White tiled walls with patterns in black, lots of appropriate pictures.   Canteen has about a dozen menu items, restaurant twice this.   Excellent ambience/service/food--- they obviously buy all seafood very, very fresh.    Shellfish platters superb.   Like the good Parisian places, they display and sell fresh shellfish, too.    Two-three veg options.    Very good, traditional desserts (try lemon tart or crème brulée).   £ 2 cover charge for good breads and amuse-gueules in restaurant.   Good wines, but expensive.   Must book for restaurant.    Air-con.    Very convenient and very popular before/after West End theatre.

3 courses 15.50, (18.50 after 1900) hours in restaurant

Canteen 3 courses 11.50;     2 courses 9.50 Theatre menu 1700-1900, 2200-2330

1200- 2330 (Sunday 2230)

Restaurant closed 1500- 1730 (canteen open)

(U: Piccadilly Circus, Leicester Square)

fax 0-207 287 8400

Mauritian seafood (blend of Asian, African and French) plus straight French.    The seafood is fresh, so the menu might depend a little on the market.   Huge helpings, excellent service, good range of flavourings, including spices, tomatoes, herbs.   Curry de crevettes Mauricien (Mauritian prawn curry), lots of lobster dishes, feuilleté d'homard (lobster in a puff pastry case), shellfish platters, bourride de fruits de mer (prawns, mussels, salmon in saffron soup), fruits de mer à la citronelle (seafood with a lemon grass bouillon), fricassée des Isles (tropical fish and its juices with ginger, tomatoes, chilli), perroquet de mer à la moutarde (parrot fish with a mustard sauce).   Desserts are simple but very good, including fruit.   Unprepossessing outside, simple ambience, but linen table cloths and napkins, flowers, seafood pictures and wall tiles.

1830- 2300

Closed Sunday lunch

(U: Finsbury Park)

Loch Fyne is the longest and deepest sea loch in Scotland.    In the 1970's, two people set up oyster beds there, moving on to smokeries and helping/catching other seafood.   Their philosophy is "total sustainability".   More recently, they have opened restaurants around England, and are continuing to do so.    All the food is top, top quality.   Extremely flexible menus--- eat what you want, when, never mind describing it in "courses".     Light dishes include their smoked fishes, scallops, mussels, mackerel pâté, salad of Isle of Mull cheddar with crème fraiche dressing, smoked haddock chowder.     Oysters (far better than in any supermarket) can be raw (with lemon and Tabasco, or with onion and wine vinegar), baked with spinach and mornay, or grilled with garlic.    Their kippers are real, smoked herrings, not dyed and flavoured as in most shops.   Main courses of fish and shellfish are large and top, top quality.   There are a few vegetable and meat dishes, including Glen Fyne rib-eye, and smoked Rannoch venison.   Scottish cheeses with oatcakes, and desserts are superb.   In the mornings they also serve breakfast in some sites.   Air-con.    There is a counter selling shellfish, fish and smoked and cured seafood.    Ambience is light coloured walls, wooden floor, light wooden tables and attractive wooden chairs (some blue).    Attractive pictures relevant to fish, lochs, etc.   This Review is of their Barnet, Cambridge, Loughton, Reading, and Covent Garden sites.    Visit our England page for locations of their, many more, sites, or visit their web page.

20- 40

Their web site

-2300 Fri, Sat

1000- 2130 Sunday

0-208 441 6342 fax

2-4 Catherine Street,  Covent Garden,
London WC2B 5JS (U: Covent Garden)

Spanish

Tapas is Spanish for 'cover' or 'lid'.   Centuries ago in Spain, to keep the flies out of the glasses of sherry, bartenders used to cover the glass with a slice of jamón Serrano, etc.   Other small food items were used later, on top of a slice of bread.   The tapas were free.    So, real tapas are small servings of food, on bread.   In Spain, larger dishes in tapas bars are called raciones.   Most tapas in the UK are really raciones, served with bread, not on bread---but, then, they are getting like that in Spain, too, now.

An amazing Galician 'tapas' bar, genuinely Spanish.    They serve what the Spaniards call raciones, not tapas.   There are nearly 50 of them---you can easily eat 2-3 of these.   Boquerones en vinaigre (white anchovies in vinegar), mejillones (mussels), rabbit cazuela (casseroled rabbit), patatas bravas (spicy potatoes), gambas al ajillo (prawns with garlic), jamón Serrano (cured ham), champiñones rellenos (stuffed mushrooms), chipirones a la plancha (grilled baby squid), riñones al Jerez (kidneys in sherry) are just a small selection from the menu.    There is also a large menu of full-size dishes, such as tortillas, paellas.   Plenty of veggie dishes.   Excellent Spanish wines.   Lovely wooden tables and chairs, prints of Picasso, Miró, Dali on the walls, Spanish music.  About 75 seats, plus bar.    Spanish staff.   Must book for dinner and weekend lunches.

1200- 1430 (1530 Sat, 2300 Sun)

1800- 2330

(Suburban line King's Cross- Hornsey)

A genuinely Spanish tapas bar.   Wide range of tapas (though not many vegetarian), all excellently cooked, flavoured and presented.    Also 3-dish lunch menus (£ 4.95) (patatas bravas, salata mixta, plus one meat/fish dish), and a full menu (£17.95).   Seven Postres, including Crema Catalana, Flan con Helado de Vainilla, Tiano de Cielo con Quesa y Piñones (cake with cheese and pine nuts).   Good wines, and excellent service from Spaniards.    Lovely, Spanish ambience, on three floors, interconnected with curved, wrought iron staircases painted glossy black.   Lovely, brightly patterned, Spanish wall tiles.    The bottom floor has seats all along the wall with scores of brightly patterned cushions.     Spanish wrought iron light fittings.   Lots of Spanish pictures.    Air-conditioned.   There are three other branches which we have not yet tried.     They only take bookings for eight or more, otherwise it's first come, first served, but we have not had a problem.

1200- 2300 except Sunday, when they close at 2230.

(U: Covent Garden)

A tapas bar and restaurant.   Lovely ambience, with moulded ceiling, floor of patterned tiles, dark wooden furniture, dark red upholstery, lots of pictures and posters.    Lots of green plants in restaurant.   Excellent service, excellent food.   Normal raciones.   You could think you are in Spain, it is so good.    Try albondigas (meatballs), pulpo (octopus), baby squid, alcachofas (artichoke hearts), rinoñes al Jerez (kidneys in sherry), Navarran asparagus, oyster mushrooms with garlic and roasted peppers, homemade fishcakes, or cochinillo asado (roast suckling pig).   Not brilliant for vegetarians.    The restaurant also has some dishes bordering on French food.

Restaurant 15.95 three courses

1200- 1430 1730- 2245 (restaurant 1900 start) Mon-Fri

1900- 2245 Sat

Closed Sunday

Their web site

Most of the Isle of Dogs is a gastronomic disaster, but this Spanish tapas bar/restaurant is excellent.  Superb tapas,  really genuinely Spanish (as are the very good waiters).    Patatas bravas, boquerones, calamares romana, gambas al ajillo, crepe vegetariana, pan con alioli, etc, all excellent.    Large number of very good Spanish wines that you'll never find in London supermarkets or wine merchants.    Bottle of a superb, vintage Tempranillo, £ 12    Lovely, lovely desserts, lots of them.   Spanish crème caramel (crema Catalana) and a rice pudding (arroz con leche) superb.    Large portions.

1100- 2300 Mon-Fri

1800- 2300 Sat

Closed Sunday

Live music Fri-Sat evenings (Samba, salsa)

(Isle of Dogs, Docklands Light Railway Crossharbour)

We have eaten in these restaurants for many years, some for over twenty years.    They have ALWAYS been excellent for us.   We have a reputation that, if we ever receive poor food, wine or service in any restaurant, we NEVER return.