Tom Kerridge's Hand and Flowers lives up to its lofty reputation

The Hand and Flowers has been on our culinary bucket list for a long time. We’ve long been fans of chef and owner Tom Kerridge. Marlow’s not that far. We’ve had plenty of special occasions to celebrate. But we’d never quite managed to combine the necessary advance planning (three months, at least) with an open slot in the diary. Finally, the stars aligned. We marked Mr. Bencard’s 60th birthday with a long, magnificent lunch that rivalled our best-ever meal at Clare Smyth’s Core.

This is, of course, a very different kind of place. The Hand and Flowers may hold two Michelin stars, but it’s still a pub in a charming small town along a mostly rural stretch of the Thames—not a temple of modern design patronised by the capital’s great, good and glamorous. Different in no way means inferior. If anything, the pub ethos only adds to the magic.

I’ve been lucky to dine at a generous number of Michelin-starred restaurants (see the index of reviews in the left column). They all serve exceptional food, and most start with luxury ingredients and gourmet concepts. It’s fancy from the first idea.

The Hand and Flowers starts from a different place: wholesome, traditional British comfort food. Like classic Italian cooking, it builds on a foundation of simple ingredients—beef, duck, pastry, potato—in deceptively straightforward preparations, executed to an insanely high standard.

Take the amuse bouche, for example. A bite-sized sausage roll with a side of spiced mayo. The stuff of a hundred summer picnics, a familiar taste guaranteed to put a smile of both recollection and anticipation on your face. Here, the familiar is transformed into something almost unrecognisable. The meat is so smooth and perfectly spiced, the pastry so flaky, the mayo such an exquisite complement that it’s hardly still a humble sausage roll. And yet it envelops you in the warm emotional blanket of comfort food.

That’s the one-two punch that makes this place special: the nostalgic hug of the familiar, delivered with the dazzling artistry of fine dining.

We started with dishes we might easily choose at our local: pork and mushroom terrine for me, duck liver parfait for the birthday boy. I was seriously tempted by the parfait, too, but had duck lined up for my main course and wanted to mix things up. As with the sausage roll, both starters took the familiar and elevated them into the gourmet stratosphere. My terrine was an explosion of umami, balanced by the sharp tang of minuscule dill pickles and pickled onions. 

But Piers’ parfait was the clear winner. Neither of us has ever tasted that combination of rich flavour and light texture before—so smooth it had the consistency of top-quality gelato, but at room temperature. A chat with the staff—and a helpful browse through the Hand and Flowers cookbook—revealed that even with a week at the Gascony Cooking School and the ability to make our own foie gras, we’d never come close. The processes, steps and specialist equipment used to put that perfect quenelle on the plate were nothing short of wizardry.

The main course had its own amuse bouche in the form of a spectacular bottle of wine. We let the sommelier guide us, and he delivered something worthy of the occasion: Habla No. 30 from a small vineyard in Trujillo, in the Extremadura region of Spain. If I had to limit myself to just one red wine for the rest of my life, this might be it. It’s full of fruit (the producer says tropical; I tasted dark berry) but balanced with black pepper and herb. That balance is its magic. It has the punch of flavour I love in bold Malbecs or Cab Sauvs, but with a delicacy and lightness that nods to my husband’s preference for elegant French Pinot Noirs. A perfect compromise.

A memorable wine deserves memorable food. And out it came.

I had the Devon duck breast and cherry “pie” with duck liver, marmalade sauce and crispy duck fat potatoes. The “pie” was actually a slice of roulade, styled like a Wellington: crisp pastry, a blanket of duxelles and liver wrapped around perfectly pink duck breast. My only quibble—there wasn’t much cherry on the palate, and the sauce could have used a bit more fruitiness to balance the tang of the liver. But that’s a small note. I loved every bite. The crispy duck fat potatoes showed exactly why Tom Kerridge is famous for his triple-cooked chips. Outstanding.

And yet I only ate one, giving the rest to my husband—not just because it was his birthday, but because his main came with mash, which he didn’t fancy. We’d been served each other’s favourites, so we swapped. Not that he needed anything extra to elevate the perfection of his 30-day dry-aged fillet of beef with potato-buttermilk waffle, crème fraîche and chive butter, and sauce bordelaise. We are highly competent cooks, confident with meat. We go to a top-quality butcher. We have great pans. And yet we’ve never managed a steak like this. A hot, crispy, flavourful bark on the outside. Extremely rare within. Sauce as smooth as silk sliding over a baby’s stomach. We might get close on the steak with more butter and higher heat. The sauce? That’s another realm. As for the potato-buttermilk waffle—in a world of deep-fried delights, it’s near the top.

Despite generous portions and plentiful bread, I heroically found room for dessert: a malted nougat delice, essentially a thin slice of wicked indulgence with cocoa, ale, smoked toffee and hop ice cream. I confess to being unsophisticated on the chocolate front—I usually prefer milk to gourmet dark—but this grown-up version turned my head. The ale, smoke and hops added sharpness and bitterness that lifted the whole thing far above the average chocoholic hit.

Piers, meanwhile, went for the cheese board. I was far too full to help, but he marched bravely up that hill, tackling a generous selection of English classics (including my beloved Baron Bigod) and French sophistication. I was particularly impressed with the accompaniments: not just ordinary biscuits, but hand-made crunchy sheets topped with seeds and nuts, a date bread salad, and yet another perfect little sausage roll. All washed down with a tawny port.

I’ve not always nailed the birthday brief for my husband, but this one brought him to his culinary happyplace and pushed all the right buttons.

There is a set lunch: three courses for £65, or two for £55. With a specialty soda or a pint of beer, you could walk away for under £100 per person. But it was a milestone birthday, and our eyes inevitably drifted to the most tempting items on the menu. We didn’t hold back. This is what we save for, and it was worth every penny.

Where else can you find comfort food turned into pure magic?

There's a video of our experience on TikTok. If you scroll there, find me as BencardsBites.

Sicilian Food Part Two: Accursio elevates traditional cuisine to an innovative and delicious place

I curate my social media so rigorously that it’s easy to forget how toxic an environment an online community can be. Thus I was taken by surprise when, while asking about Michelin-starred dining experiences within a usually-constructive Italian travel forum, several respondents energetically insulted me for the stupidity of wasting money on fine dining. I like to think the aggressors weren’t aware of just how nasty they came across. But they did raise a fair point. When Sicilian food is so consistently excellent, and often inexpensive, why would you spend all that money on a fancy restaurant?

In three words: elevation, innovation, and education. 

Sicily’s magnificent local produce, the cultural melange of its history and its natives’ obsession with food create one of the best culinary cultures in the world. It is, however, fundamentally a cuisine known for its simplicity and heartiness. There are culinary traditionalists, raised in the sacred foundations of the Cordon Bleu, who acknowledge Italian as perfectly pleasant for a hearty, casual meal but instinctively believe it can’t compete with francophone dishes of high complexity, smooth sauces, and elegant presentation. Even MasterChef UK, a franchise that’s mostly abandoned classical French food in favour of more exotic cuisines, will always question whether pasta dishes are “good enough” and can be presented nicely enough, to win. (Happily, Campania-born Vito Coppola won Celebrity Masterchef this year with a style uncompromisingly drawn from Southern Italy, so there is hope.) Quite simply, in a world where the French classics still set the standard, I wanted to see how a Sicilian chef could elevate his game to compete.

Second, while everyone buys in to the idea of the cucina povera … the wholesome, poor but loving kitchen of the Italian grandmother that’s existed for time immemorial …. it’s largely a myth created by food marketing companies in the late 20th century. As John Dickie explains in his excellent book Delizia: The Epic History of Italians and their Food, Italian cuisine is heavily based on the urban traditions of aristocrats and rich merchants who were always looking for something new. (Most peasants across Italy were so poor until the 20th century that they existed on monotonous subsistence diets with little scope for culinary traditions.) The Italians have also been fantastic at taking advantage of new ingredients and processes, whether that’s spices coming in from the Far East, tomatoes and peppers being introduced from the New World or machines making pasta. I wanted to see how this long tradition of innovation came to life in modern Sicily.

Finally, I wanted to learn. One of the joys of the kinds of restaurants that get Michelin stars is that they’re obsessed about their supply chain, their processes and their wines, and they’re very happy to tell you about it. Each dish usually comes with a narrative, and these sorts of places hire staff who are delighted to engage in conversation about the nuances of what’s on the plate. If you go for a wine pairing, you’ll inevitably be introduced to new grape varieties and producers. Every meal is an education. Sure, I knew more than the average paesana about Sicilian food, but I wanted to learn more.

Enter Accursio Craparo, known as the Chef of the two Sicilies for his passion to bring the traditions of the east and the west of the island together. Accursio is not just a chef but a storyteller, something obvious from the moment you ring the bell to be allowed into this quiet, peaceful restaurant space in the vaulted basement of an old palace. As he explains on his website: “Everything here resembles myself, in the warmth of a house that I feel is mine and where I am happy to welcome my guests. The floor presents itself as a field of flowers, the walnut chairs and tables recall the generous trees, the colours are those of the countryside, the lanterns those of the small boats that used to hang from the trees on summer evenings.”

The narrative continues on the plate. The first dish, called “welcome to Sicily”, is a wooden bowl of wild herbs cradling a sphere of liquid that’s somewhere between a consommé and a herbal tea. Close your eyes, inhale, and you could be walking through a fragrant meadow. Next comes “the rite of origins”, a simple presentation of bread, salt and local olive oil. This is the third fine dining restaurant of the year in which we’ve seen bread spotlighted as its own course rather than consigned to the basket for pre-meal snacking. Given bread’s sacral role in human life, and Sicily’s profound Catholicism, it’s particularly logical here.

Preliminaries over, it’s time to swim in abundant seafood. “The arrival of the breeze” presents fried mullet, apricot and yogurt, so exquisitely shaped it looks more like a piece of cake than a savoury. “Painted blue” vied for our favourite dish of the night: two small, perfectly-grilled squid with goat's ricotta, seaweed and saffron. The mix of green, yellow and white sauces on the plate reminded me of the bright tilework that clothes the island. “The juice of Sicily” was not lemon but a sauce for linguini with anchovy, tuna bottarga and fennel. Anyone who thinks pasta can’t be elevated to fine dining needs to take a look at this dish.

We moved inland with another pasta dish called “scorched lands” celebrating the distinctive formaggio ragusano cheese that somehow comes from the cows here despite the fact the land is more often brown than green. It came on a handmade pasta shape I’d never seen before, sort of a large spiral, thick and chewy, sauce made more exotic with spices and capers. Next came “the metamorphosis of the landscape”. We were so delighted with everything and were chatting about so many things with the staff that I forgot to ask what that name had to do with roast fish that had been poached in “acqua pazza di mandorle”, a traditional broth and wine-based liquid here spiked with almonds.

Our transition from savoury to sweet came with the kind of illusion often deployed to add a bit of fun to the high art of fine dining. The local potters had been put to work not on traditional forms but on egg cartons and spheres that looked like they’d come out of a chicken that morning. Your “egg” opens to reveal egg white and yolk, but dip your spoon and you’ll find something close to a panna cotta with a centre of sharp passion fruit puree. And finally we’d arrived at the climax, essentially a chocolate mille-feuille accompanied by sheep’s ricotta ice cream. The crunch of the layers came not from your traditional pastry but from aubergine, somehow magicked from vegetable to sweet treat. Given how much aubergine this island seems to produce at this time of year, finding new uses for it makes perfect sense. I’d completely lost track of the names of the dishes by this point so forgot to ask what story “a bite of culture” told. Other than … if this is culture, I’ll take another bite for myself.

I was the designated driver for the night, so my husband did the six-glass wine pairing and I took sips. As you might imagine from the menu, the wines were mostly whites though varied widely depending on the flavour profile of the sauces. There was a light red to go with the earthy pasta and one of the fish, continuing the mission of many sommeliers to prove you can drink a lot more with seafood than white wine. The wines were mostly Sicilian and all unknown to us, so certainly delivered on the education front.

That menu at Accursio will set you back €135, with an additional €85 for a six-glass wine pairing. I’m never going to claim that’s cheap, but even with the terrible exchange rate at the moment for British Sterling, it was still at least 15% less than you would pay for an equivalent experience in London. And, if I’m being brutally honest, wasn’t that much more expensive than some of our meals at nicer “every day” restaurants in Sicily when we had three courses, an aperitif and a bottle of good wine. So while it should certainly be saved for a special treat, Accursio made that splurge worth while with all the elevation, innovation and education I was looking for. In addition to nine plates of extraordinary food.

Beyond pizza: Extraordinary seafood and vegetables make Neapolitan food special

You could easily spend an entire holiday in Naples eating nothing but pizza, pastries, and street food and still come home raving about the quality of the food. This, however, is a city that delivers on every culinary level, and its proper restaurants deserve some attention, too. Especially if you love fresh produce and seafood. 

Like the rest of Italy, Neapolitan food favours simple preparations of top quality ingredients. plenty of pasta, which you can have the traditional way as a starter before your meat, or as a main course. Vegetables tend to come as side dishes, not assembled onto a main course plate with multiple elements. Neapolitans join their fellow Italians in preferring what’s local, and seasonal.

Like most Italians, they’ll tell you that THEIR local ingredients are better than other regions … and here they may have a point. Abundant sunshine, gentle breezes and the notoriously fecund volcanic soil produce exquisite fruit and vegetables. Stop to admire a greengrocer’s stand here and you’ll be gazing at something just as worthy of veneration as the city’s art. They grow varieties distinctive to the area, San Marzano tomatoes being the most well known. We were visiting in high season for friarelli (known as broccoli rabe in the States), a green somewhere between tender-stem broccoli and cavolo nero, and some gorgeous, red-tinged artichokes I’d never seen before. All this fabulous fruit and veg doesn’t mean, however, that you’ll always be eating healthily. The Neapolitans are so fond of deep frying things you’d think they were twinned with Glasgow.

This is also the point on the Italian peninsula where people start to get really serious about desserts. Omnipresent Italian gelato and tiramisu has competition here from mouth-watering cakes, pastries, tarts, and biscuits. We can thank medieval Arab occupation for the love of pastry, and centuries under Spanish rule for easy access to sugar and chocolate coming in from the new world.

In fact, many argue that the magnificence of Southern Italian food is a direct consequence of thousands of years of imperialist foreigners running the place, going all the way back to Greek merchants and then to Romans established the whole coast as a destination for luxury dining.

When it came to booking restaurants in modern Naples, we had a secret weapon named Nicola. A colleague of one of the girls on our trip, he was excited to arrange bookings for us at a series of restaurants over the course of our visit so that we could try all aspects of Neapolitan dining: the pizzerias (already covered here), the trendy spots, the humble local joints and the elegant retreats. I doubt you’ll get a bad meal anywhere in Naples, but Nicola ensured that we saw all sides of this vibrant city’s food scene. My only regret? Large portions and travelling companions who were all avoiding desserts meant I left sweets unexplored at our restaurant choices.

It was the humble neighbourhood restaurant that stole my heart, and it’s the first one I’d return to. Locanda Monacone is deep inside Rione Sanità, the former rough neighbourhood now rehabilitated into a popular residential area for creative types. It’s the destination for visitors who want a more local experience. The restaurant is proud to be a long-standing occupant of the neighbourhood; contributing to its revival with local employment. Its small, ground-floor dining room is dominated by a tile mural of Catholic saints under a barrel vault. It looks like it’s been unchanged for centuries.

Our expectations were low when we arrived, however, because that charming space was taken by a private party and we were ushered to a tiny landing upstairs with three tables outside of the kitchen. We feared the staff would ignore us and we’d be wildly irritated by the noises below and the traffic of servers from the kitchen. Not at all! The staff seemed to redouble their efforts, really making a fuss over us. By the end of the evening we were dancing with them and the downstairs party-goers to the birthday boy’s live band. And the food! Weeks later, I’m still dreaming about the plate of fritto misto (a range of deep-fried delights) followed by linguini with fresh artichokes and chunks of sweet, crispy pancetta that practically brought tears of joy to my eyes. There was an exceptional local wine list and the waiters here seemed better informed about, and more willing to discuss, options than the servers at most of the more expensive places we went. I hope that somewhere in my family history there’s a link between my line and Benito Ferrara, whose label served up a wonderfully crisp, lively Greco du Tufo to perfectly counter that rich food. 

Our most elegant experience was at TransAtlantico, a hotel and restaurant nestled beneath the Castel dell’Ovo with harbour-side tables looking over yachts and the Naples seafront with Vesuvius hanging in the background. The decor is all inspired by trans-Atlantic liners of the ‘20s and ‘30s, so there’s a lovely atmosphere inside. But for most of the year you’ll want to reserve one of those outside tables. This is the kind of place designed for that romantic dream date, but it’s pretty darned good with your girlfriends, too.

As appropriate to its location, TransAtlantico is all about the seafood. Prawns in tomato sauce, tuna tartare and a dish of lemon-laced courgettes all won raves, but I’m confident my octopus on a bed of caponata was the dish of the night. Each component part … octopus, aubergine, onion, tomato … seemed the exemplar of its individual taste, yet married together for a coherent whole. If there was one dish the whole trip that made me sigh “you just don’t get fresh tomatoes like this anywhere else” it was this one. (Top photo)

It’s here that I also got to try a white wine I’ve been reading about for years: lacryma christi. If you love both wine and history, it’s hard to resist the idea that this is as close to the wine preferred by the Ancient Romans as you can get, and that it’s been praised in literature for centuries by writers as diverse as Voltaire, Hawthorne and Marlow. I wasn’t disappointed. It’s a rich, heavy white … along the same lines as a well-aged Burgundian Chardonnay … but has a distinctive flavour profile of grass, white peach and a hint of almond. I was planning to bring some bottles home but the wine shop in Rione Sanità was closed on our departure day.

If you want to feel part of the hip and trendy scene in Naples, head to Cap’Alice. Like TransAtlantico, thisis in the upscale part of town along the coast, west of the historic centre. But where TransAtlantico’s position on the water looking toward all the great 19th century hotels speaks of a history of grand tourism, this place is on a small lane that rises through the Chiaia neighbourhood and screams “local”. You wouldn’t find without looking for it.

The food and wine was good, the people watching better. The fried calamari we shared as a starter was excellent. My tuna crusted in almonds was beautiful, but the report back on the other mains was competent, not exceptional. The wine list was interesting and the bottles we sampled were top-notch, but given that the place is known as a wine bar we were disappointed not to get more insight and guidance from the staf. Overall, service was really stretched and I suspect we did not get the best from the place because it was Friday night. The compensation was watching a parade of well-dressed locals demonstrating the Neapolitan exuberance for life. I’m not sure this was worth the effort to go all the way across town, but if I were staying in this neighbourhood I would try Cap’Alice again, on a weeknight, as well as sampling other places on this bustling little lane.

For dining with beautiful foreigners, of course, it was off to Capri. We enjoyed a long, relaxing lunch at Capanna in the main town, one of those understated but classic stalwarts plastered with photos of all the famous people who have eaten there. The interior is a cool, elegant mix of white walls, painted tiles, and potted plants, with tropical-themed plates hand-painted for the restaurant. Temperatures were mild when we visited but I can imagine what a refugee this would be from the blazing heat of high summer.

La Capannina is on a quiet lane a bit back from the main tourist drag; out taxi driver had tipped it to us when we asked him for food the locals really rated, then validated by the fact that one of the girls had an excellent meal ere on an earlier trip. It’s no bargain … at €71 each it was our most expensive meals on our trip … but that’s Capri. And our love of good wine means we’re inevitably spending as much on drinks as food.

For the premium price you get gracefully attentive service, an elegantly peaceful environment and glorious food. Their specialty of bufala mozzarella-stuffed ravioli earned eye rolls of appreciation around the table. The girls thought the Loggia della Sera Greco di Tufo was the best example of this local variety that we drank. I, however, was most impressed by a spaghetti dish with prawns in a lemon sauce. According to the waitress, the secret is lemoncello kneaded into the pasta. The flavour profile was so impressive I tried to make it as soon as I got home. My pasta was pretty good, but my sauce came nowhere near the light creaminess of theirs. The dish was memorable enough that I’ll keep trying. Perfecting the recipe is more likely than a quick return to Capri.

Honorable mentions:

Caffetteria Tonya: While I wouldn’t go out of my way to get here … I am sure there are thousands of places like this across Naples … Tonya was a great example of the neighbourhood Italian cafe. This is also why breakfast is so often optional in Italian lodging. Culturally, people prefer having their coffee and cornetto (the Italian version of a croissant) in public. I went here every morning, often sitting for an hour reading or sketching with my coffee. By the third day the two guys who worked there knew my order (cappuccino, cornetto filled with crema di pistacchio). It was fascinating to see the regular parade of locals, and how the barman took trays of coffee up and down the street for other shopkeepers. No paper cups here: proper glass and china even though he was crossing uneven paving stones and dodging speeding scooters. The guys knew the names not just of the locals, but of their dogs. Every day we saw these pillars of the community open up at 8am and roll up the shutters around 8pm. 

Tesoreria: This exquisite cocktail bar in the Galleria Principe di Napoli is worth a special trip, so beautiful are its interiors and so skilled its bartenders. The restaurant in its atmospheric, groin-vaulted cellars looked intriguing and I would have loved to try it, but all of our dining opportunities were booked up. Here’s yet another excuse to consider a return trip to Naples.

Living the good life, with full stomachs, at Vall de Cavall

Brands like Ralph Lauren and Carolina Herrera have long embraced the equestrian scene to sell luxury products. Beautiful people, wearing beautiful clothes, gambolling around beautiful landscapes on beautiful beasts screams aspirational lifestyle. If you want to live it for real, if only for a brief time, head to Vall de Cavall restaurant nestled in the deep countryside of the Marina Alta south of Dénia.

It’s the kind of place you’re unlikely to stumble upon as an outsider. It’s tough to find even if you know where you’re going; most drivers on the road winding though this mountainous region would be concentrating too much on the twists and turns to notice the small sign on a one-track lane that leads across the valley. Follow it, however, and you’ll come to a traditional Spanish ranch house clothed in bougainvillea and surrounded by stables, paddocks and horses. The surrounding peaks make the rest of the world feel very, very far away.

Like most of our experience along the coast in this region, the mood and the clientele are pan-European. So is the management: owned by a Belgian-born professional equestrian and his Spanish wife, the kitchen run by a Moroccan head chef. Yet this felt a good deal more Spanish than anything along the coast, and even though the menu is best considered “international fine dining” the amount of pork, saffron, Spanish wines and regional Spanish dishes sinks the kitchen’s roots deep into its valley.

I started with grilled octopus with creamy potatoes and crispy ham. It was a beautiful dish and the tricky cephalopod was perfectly cooked. The ham was a great match (everything’s better with pork…) but I could have done without the potatoes which made the dish overly rich and fought with the octopus to be the star of the show. It couldn’t come close to the African interpretation I wrote about last month. 

The real headliner of the first course came on the side; delicate filo pastry wrapped around what tasted like the inside of a chicken pastilla, shaped and presented like branches of an exotic tree.

I went for a Spanish classic next and opted for the suckling pig. Beautifully presented and as succulent as you’d expect…

but the winner of this round was clearly our friend who went with oxtail in Pedro Ximenez sauce. This was comfort food of the highest level; the kind of thing that makes you roll your eyes in ecstasy the moment it hits your tastebuds. The sweet sherry provided a balance to the fatty meat while keeping everything lusciously moist. (The pig, on the other hand, could have used more sauce.) 

I’m tempted to try both at home, given that I saw someone picking up a suckling pig at our local farm shop last time I was in, but I suspect the oxtail is less tricky to get right.

Vall de Cavall presents a challenge for the dessert lover. The portions are so enormous, and much of the food so rich, that it is almost impossible to contemplate a third course. We paused for a while, letting glasses of Crianza aid our digestion while we appreciated the interiors. Spanish hacienda style with cosy furniture, enormous fireplaces, terra-cotta floors and an art collection featuring horses from a range of artistic traditions, ancient Chinese to near-abstract modern. We moved outside … probably waddling rather than walking … for coffee on the patio. Because it was my birthday and our wedding anniversary, a chocolate cake glistening with mirror glaze beneath a miniature Roman candle spouting sparkles arrived at the table as the waiting staff surrounded us to sing. Despite the stuffed stomachs, we managed to clear the plate. It would have been rude not to.

To accompany the chocolate, we drank in the ambiance. Umbrellas filter the Mediterranean sun. A swimming pool offers the glitter of water. Mountains loom. Bright flowers scramble over stone walls flecked with the same rusts and greys of the mountains. You could sit happily for a very long time. Horsey people, no doubt, were gambolling about in a paddock nearby. I, simply borrowing the lifestyle for an afternoon, soaked it all in and gave thanks to our friends who inducted us into this local secret of the good life. 

Quilon takes Indian food to a magical, exotic extreme

Indian is the UK's go-to casual comfort food, whether consumed as take-away, at the local curry house, as one of the inevitable options on the classic pub menu or knocked up with a jar of mass-produced sauce at home. It's usually humble, crowd pleasing and relatively cheap. But different types of  Indian chefs have been on the march for the past decade, working to show that food from the sub-continent can be sophisticated, elegant and complex. They've been rewarded: 10 of London's 70 Michelin-starred restaurants now come from an Indian tradition.

My first taste of Michelin-starred Indian ... woefully belated, I confess ... explained why critics have been so excited about this trend. Quilon, tucked into the Taj Hotel in the heart of Westminster, may share some menu items with your local curry house but it's unlikely that you'll recognise the presentation. Or the delicacy and layering of the spices. Most interestingly, Quilon focuses on a single region. In a world where "Indian" has come to mean a highly generic set of dishes, many of which were developed in England for English tastes, there's a specific focus here on Southwest coastal Indian cuisine. Quilon is exotic in a way that regular British Indian restaurants have ceased to be.

Given the regional focus, the logical choice would have been the seafood tasting menu. But we were keen to try as broad a range of flavours as possible so opted for both meat and fish. The fact that this choice is labelled the "non-vegetarian tasting menu" reminds you that this cuisine is culturally vegetarian to start out with. If you want to treat a friend who doesn't eat meat, the options here are vast.

The realisation that you're on a different culinary planet comes early on, with the papadums. (Photo above.) No pile of plate-sized crisps with the ubiquitous spinning server of condiments in silver bowls here. Instead there's a dish of bite-sized papadums of dazzling uniformity. An array of accompaniments goes from a brain-melting bowl of pickled chilis to a comfortingly mild coconut paste. The server arranges everything in spice order, so you can work from mild to hot or stay wherever you like on the journey.

Next came an artful rectangular plate adorned with three little cakes, each with an accompanying swoosh of bright sauce beneath. In the centre, a pale orange crab cake. To one side, vibrant green broccoli. On the other, ruby-rich beetroot. Each flavour was distinct and, like a fine wine, each taste started out as one thing and finished as another. The obvious hit of the crab or the vegetables came first, followed by waves of spice. Warming, but not hot.

The fish course brought one triumph and, surprisingly, the only disappointment of the night.

The lemon sole marinated with Goan spices and herbs was a bit overcooked and lacked any prominent taste. A single jumbo prawn masala carried enough flavour for both, perfectly cooked and dancing an energetic duet with a mix of tomato, onion and mustard. We must have been rolling our eyes with joy, because the server somehow knew to slip us another one on the side of our next course.

But first, a steaming glass of spiced tomato consume. I'm not sure you can call something that highly-flavoured a palate cleanser, but it was a fine set up for what was to come.

The main course was closest, both in presentation and taste, to curry as I already knew it. As many Masterchef contestants have learned to their frustration, it's tough to make stews elegant.

 Here, a dome of lamb biryani sat on an oversized white rectangle of a plate, with three square dishes arranged at the top. A Mondrian canvas of curry. The dishes held mangalorean chicken (a spicy curry to balance the milder lamb); a memorable melange of coconut, snow peas and asparagus shavings; and a thick yogurt dotted with pomegranate seeds and candied fruit (possibly pineapple?) to allow you to balance the heat to your preference. The most mind-blowing part of this course was malabar paratha. It was a flatbread, but as far from the standard curry house nan as your mass-produced white slice is from an artisan croissant. The croissant reference is intentional: paratha dough is beaten to a thin sheet and folded to form layered bread, then cooked on a skillet with pure ghee. The end result is light, both pillowy and flaky, and pulls apart in a spiral. Decadent.

Though Indian friends have assured me that their culinary heritage is obsessed by sweets, the curry houses of England would have you think kulfi and lassi are the only options. Quilon happily sets out to correct this idea.

The chef shifted our taste buds from savoury to sweet with a pre-desert mouthful of a warm jaggery fudge with a tart fruit sauce. You wouldn't want more than a taste of this overwhelming sweetness, but it was a pleasantly bold announcement of the dish to come.

Which was a celebration of all things pistachio.

Presented out of context, I would have called this plate Sicilian. I was delighted. Pistachio cake. Pistachio ice cream. Pistachio praline. Pistachio crumb. With a few small puddles of black sesame fondant to add an umami complement to the gentle green sweetness. I was in heaven. The place from where my Sicilian grandfather, who first taught me the joy of that nut, was no doubt smiling in benediction.

We were stuffed, but couldn't resist a nibble at the chocolate wafers that came out to end the meal. White chocolate infused with cardamom and dark with rose encapsulated the whole experience: familiar tastes elevated with delicate and surprising lashings of flavour.

If this is how they eat on the Southwest coast of India, then Karala just jumped onto my bucket list. By the end of the evening, the food had transported me to a holiday destination of warm breezes and swaying palms, foreign herbs and alluring spices. I almost expected to walk out the door to find the Arabian Sea lapping at a beach of powdery sand. Sadly, the spell was broken as I hit the cold drizzle of early March in London. But it was great while it lasted.

At just over £100 per person for the tasting menu with half a bottle of wine, service included, there's no denying this is a pricey meal. But for a magical evening that transports you body and soul into a luxurious and exotic beach holiday, it's not bad value for money.

Embracing the "small plates" fashion in London? Head for The Shed or Caravan.

Combining tapas-style small plates with high-end dining was radical when Gordon Ramsay introduced the concept at London's Maze in 2005. When I reviewed it two years later it was still unique, and still one of the hottest tables in town. The restaurant has been on a downward trajectory in recent years however, delivering a deep disappointment on a return visit in 2010, losing its Michelin star in 2015, changing its concept and scheduled for closure early this year.

The small plates revolution that Maze kicked off, however, has grown steadily to become a "new normal"; so much so that at least half of my Christmas-season holiday meals took place at restaurants built around the ethos. Establishments don't even bother to promote it in their marketing these days. You can just be reasonably certain that if you're confronted with a large menu on which most of the dishes are around the £10 mark, you're probably expected to order numerous items per person to graze and share.

I'm still not totally convinced by the trend. While it does help the greedy or indecisive to sample a wider range of what's on offer, I rarely come away from these evenings fully satisfied. And the bill usually feels pricier than what you'd pay for a standard three course meal. (Though this could be due to the fact that the grazing nature of the experience encourages more alcohol consumption.) There were two notable exceptions, however, in my pre-holiday dining rounds: The Shed and Caravan.

The Shed is the restaurant I dream of having in the Hampshire countryside, near my house, at which I'd become a regular. It's essentially a big garden shed decorated with old farming kit, oil barrels for table bases, the bones of an old John Deere tractor framing the bar. The menu celebrates English produce, is rigorously seasonal and scrupulous about citing its sources. Much of Shed's larder was bred or grown within a hundred miles. Dishes are simple in concept yet elegantly presented. At this time of year there's lots of game. The menu splits into "slow cooking" and "fast cooking", the former celebrating those succulent, traditionally meaty dishes that fall off the bone or vegetables that caramelise to sticky sweetness.

Sadly, this exquisite representation of the English countryside isn't in that countryside, but in one of London's priciest neighbourhoods ... on the borders of Notting Hill and Kensington, on a small lane snuggling up against the northwest corner of Kensington Palace Gardens. So you're likely to rack up a bit of a bill as you snack through delights like a single Lulworth scallop with caramelised artichoke served on its glorious shell, Sussex beef with truffle duxelles, heritage carrot hummus (top photo) or pheasant with spiced red cabbage. All in snack-sized plates to encourage you to share and order more.

We were particularly fond of the pulled pork "cigars", melt-in-your-mouth meat rolled into crispy, flaky pastry. While the scallop, however, pinpointed the drawbacks of the small plates idea. Each of us would have welcomed two or three of them as our own dish, rather than a third of one scallop, no matter how delicious the morsel. Fortunately, when it came to desert, their honeycomb crunchie dipped in chocolate, sitting on a little cloud of meringue, came out with individual pieces for all.


The Shed has an excellent wine list including ... as you'd expect ... a well-curated range of English options.

I can see why this place has been popular with Londoners since it opened in 2012. If you spend your day in the urban jungle, The Shed instantly transports you to the green and pleasant land beyond the M25.  If only the country pubs in my neighbourhood could meet this standard.

While The Shed celebrates England, Caravan draws its inspiration from almost everywhere else. Founded by three New Zealanders, they deliver a menu that is fusion in the extreme: Asian, Italian, South American, Eastern Mediterranean ... whatever you're in the mood for, you're likely to find a hint of it here. The casual, all-day dining vibe means the venues can feel as much like coffee shops (they roast their own beans) or trendy bars as they do restaurants. I've eaten at two of their five outlets, South Bank and City, and both have been consistent with quality, service, variety and fun.

Their jalapeño cornbread is probably the best I've had outside of Texas. Jamon croquetas (left) would make any Spanish bar owner proud. Feeling Italian? Try the nduja, cavolo nero and scamorza pizza. The menu can sometimes read like an exotic ingredient trivia contest: nam pla, hispi cabbage, ong choi, daikon, labneh, yuzu. You can tell the staff is used to explaining the menus. After three meals here I wouldn't worry much about the unknown: everything is great, making this a wonderful place to experiment.

I also like the way Caravan does both small plates and traditional dining. I've been here with a corporate group, ordering one of everything on the small plates menu and grazing throughout the evening. Just before Christmas I returned and treated it like a traditional three-course meal: small plate, large plate, dessert. Their confit duck with pomegranate and mint pesto, and their pork schnitzel with fried duck egg and mustard dill cream, are about as good as comfort food gets.

It's hard to believe Caravan is a chain. In fact, I didn't realise it the first time I ate here, so quirky, seasonal and distinctive is their whole approach. I wouldn't mind one of these turning up in North Hampshire, either. In the mean time, it's become a safe, go-to option in London whether I'm doing a festive graze with a big group, or an intimate meal for two.

London's Fat Bear gives Southern American cuisine the respect it deserves

American food doesn't get the respect it deserves in London.

I'm not talking about the burger joints and diners that define foreigners' ideas of American food, but the stuff of family celebrations and prized local restaurants. A cuisine that treasures ingredients from a vast and varied country with deep agricultural roots. The place that embodied "fusion" before it was a trend, as immigrants from hundreds of culinary traditions lived side-by-side or married and merged kitchens. A country where the enduring tradition of "pot luck" parties and "family style" dining reminds us that sharing great food is at the heart of what's good in life. Hell, we have a holiday dedicated to the idea. (Thanksgiving, if you're planning, is 22 November this year.)

You can probably find more Nepalese or Ethiopian restaurants in London than you can places that celebrate this kind of American cuisine. The two old warhorses, Joe Allen and Christopher's, sit a stone's throw from each other in Covent Garden. They're excellent, but expensive and noisy. Proper barbecue has seen a welcome rise in respect in London, but menus are usually limited to a narrow off-the-grill-and-sauce-it niche.

My discovery of The Fat Bear has therefore filled me with delight. It makes no pretensions to cover the whole country ... an impossible task when New York, St. Louis and San Francisco are as culinarily diverse as London, Paris and Rome ... but picks The South as its niche. And delivers to a standard that any Southern Living subscriber would applaud before inviting y'all round for a bite. This despite the fact that chef Judy Ong is actually from New York. (Believe me, that's a big compliment coming from a St. Louisan.) Husband Gareth Rees anchors a bar that does cocktails properly. No Shoreditch trend chasing or Mayfair price extortion: just an encyclopaedic knowledge of the classics mixed with healthy experimentation and an impressive range of top-quality boutique American brands. (And a few European classics, if you must.) Menu pairings include cocktails as well as wines; an excellent call when your bar is this good.

Nestled in the warren of narrow, winding streets between St. Paul's and Blackfriars, it's an intimate two-room place above a pub. The wood-slat blinds on the windows, the enormous bar on one wall and the excellent mix of jazz and zydeco on the sound system set an atmosphere to match the food. And though it's been close to full all three times I've eaten there, it's a small enough place to never be too noisy. One of those rare, moderately priced spots in London where you can catch up with friends over dinner and have a proper conversation without shouting or straining to hear.

(A quick disclaimer to university friends. Despite the fact that you have known me as "Bear" since we were 17, the above adjective has applied most of my life and Chicago banking magnate Homer Livingston once said he'd fund my bar and restaurant if I ever wanted to open one ... I have no personal ties to this place.)

For Americans with connections to The South, the Fat Bear pushes the nostalgia buttons. One taste of the pimiento dip (a spreadable cheddar cheese spiked with bits of red pepper) pulled me back to neighbourhood Fourth of July picnics. Corn dogs take a direct line to the state fair. Braised brisket, slathered with sweet and spicy BBQ sauce, took me to the back deck of my family home; I could almost hear the crickets chirping and see fireflies dancing in the trees. Most importantly, it was done properly. Simple words, but perhaps the highest praise anyone from the barbecue belt can bestow.

But would the food hold up for Brits, or even American Northerners, who had no cultural identification with the menu? Yes. Corn dog neophytes proclaimed them delicious, if a bit daunted by the fiery sauce. The dips, while curious, were satisfying. Buffalo wings with blue cheese dip were a huge hit across the table.

Fried chicken, done as Southern grandmothers demand with the bite of buttermilk that's so often

lacking in British versions, is delicious. The waffles on the side are reassuringly traditional, the sriracha-spiked maple syrup an exciting innovation. Gumbo and jambalaya both come studded with quality ingredients, spices well-layered and hot but not overwhelming.

Room for improvement comes with the desserts, opinions about which split the table on my last visit. I, who normally won't touch set cheesecakes, think their Oreo version is an addictively more-ish wonder. My husband, who prefers set and isn't an Oreo fan, thought the balance of ingredients was off and that it lacked the light airiness he wants in a cheesecake. The Brits liked the lemon tart. I referred back to the menu description ... actually Key Lime pie ... which the low-slung square before me most definitely was not. Key Limes are a specific variety with a unique taste, and the Florida classic has a colour, shape and texture not achieved here. The nostalgia factor came into play with the 'Nilla Wafer pudding. I thought it was the best of the lot, a triumph of a classic recipe ... including the re-creations of the distinctive biscuits' flavour ... that brought back happy memories of childhood. Two Londoners and one Michigander, none of whom had ever been exposed to this particular dessert (essentially a vanilla-heavy biscuit layered with sliced banana and vanilla pudding/custard), thought it was a bit vile.

Bottom line, there's enough to tempt your sweet tooth here but nothing that truly evokes The South's impressive dessert tradition. Where are the classic pies? Towering chiffons, flaky peach, bourbon-spiked pecan? How about lofty angel food cakes ... unknown in the UK but sure to be loved ... frosted in pillowy icing (my grandmother always opted for strawberry)? Or ambrosia, with citrus slices dressed in freshly-ground coconut, swimming in whipped cream, marshmallows and maraschino cherries? Actually, forget the ambrosia, Judy. This is one of those nostalgia options that will puzzle, and possibly disgust, anyone who didn't grow up with it.

With its comforting combination of food, cocktails and atmosphere, The Fat Bear gives American cuisine the respect it deserves. They can keep working on the desserts. And if Judy wants my St. Louis Gooey Butter Cake recipe, then one generously-sized ursus stands ready to help another.

Series of stumbles suggests L'Ortolan is losing its touch

L'Ortolan is one of the grand old dames of British fine dining. It first gained a Michelin star in 1982, when there were just 17 in the country. In the late '80s, it briefly held two. Six notable head chefs have led the kitchen, while time there turns up on the CV of many a culinary star. It's also the only fine dining restaurant in an area where the next best dining options are chains or serviceable gastropubs.

Thus the restaurant, tucked away in the former vicarage of a pretty rural village on the southern outskirts of Reading, has become the "go to" destination for generations of locals marking special occasions. That's certainly the case for us. I've been to L'Ortolan more than any other Michelin-starred establishment, and my evening at its extraordinary Chef's Table makes it on the list of the Top 5 dining experiences of my life.

But nothing lasts forever. I saw several signs last night, as we celebrated the double delights of my birthday and our wedding anniversary, that the venerable spot might be going through a rough patch.

The first warnings had nothing to do with the food. As we sat in the bar with our pre-dinner drinks,
we noticed a gash in one of the leather sofas, frothed with its escaping upholstery stuffing. At the table, the beautiful hand-turned wooden bowl holding our bread was obviously broken, with four inches of one edge snapped off. These may seem like little things, but at a place that stakes its reputation on perfection, they shouted. Though one of the private rooms was buzzing with a party, there were empty tables in the main room on a Friday night, while nobody occupied the esteemed chef's table. These early indications hinted that L'Ortolan was no longer at the top of its game.

We opted for the chef's menu and the matching wine flight. As expected: elegant presentation, classic French tastes, interesting matches with insightful commentary from the sommelier. The standards remain exceptionally high. Mackerel with beetroot, raspberries and a sliver of meringue was a beautiful balance of strong and soft, sweet and savoury. Who can argue with duck liver parfait, or a main of perfectly cooked duck with sides of succulent "bon bon" made of confit leg meat? That classic main got a modern boost from pineapple chutney and bok choy with a soy glaze. Chocolate tart with goat's cheese ice cream is an inspired combo of rich, sweet and tart flavours. I've had many of these elements in different combinations here over the years; the duck bon bons have earned praise on this blog before.

But all was not perfect on the plates, either. The fish course stumbled: stone bass with sea veg and caviar needed more texture, particularly as the skin was soft and flabby rather than crispy; the date puree that accompanied it was too sweet to integrate smoothly with the rest of the dish; leaving the tempura soft shell crab, meant to be a slight garnish, as the standout element on the plate. The balance seemed off on the duck liver, as well, where we had too much liver with not enough secondary elements to temper the iron-rich punch. The walls of ginger tuile were exquisite, but needed to be thicker to impart an essential sweet crunch to the dish. Mackerel, beetroot and fruit is a classic combo, but were the slices of raspberry meant to be still frozen? I suppose this could have been for texture, but something frozen that solid is both a jarring shock to the mouth, and relatively tasteless.

Repeated ingredients across courses also diminished my enjoyment. Of five courses and two amuse bouche, mackerel appeared in two and duck in two. The mackerel as a snack of crispy skin with dots of flavoured mayonnaise and that first course with beetroot. In between was a rather insipid little bowl of savoury custard topped with haddock foam. Heaven help anyone not fond of fish if presented with this opening triple salvo. The two duck courses were separated by the stone bass. Unlike mackerel I can happily enjoy much repetition of this lovely bird, but it does seem a shame to repeat when there are so many other options to explore. I found myself fondly recalling an otherwise unimpressive dinner at the French Laundry, where they bend over backwards to never repeat an ingredient from one course to another. Call me a cynic, but I had to wonder if L'Ortolan is doing a bit of cost cutting.

It could be that I was just in an exceptionally picky mood. With our magnificent meal at Denmark's Restaurant Domestic still fresh in my mind, my expectations had been ratcheted up and L'Ortolan fared badly. Within its specific context, however ... as the only top quality restaurant in its area and a place that delivers London-quality food at somewhat smaller prices ... L'Ortolan delivers. I'm not ready to abandon it yet. But I'm also in no hurry to rush back, and whenever that next special occasion calls for local fine dining, I'll be watching carefully to see if our latest experience was a quirky one-off, or sign of an ongoing decline.

Unsung heroes of London dining deserve some attention

This blog is stuffed with articles about special occasion restaurants. We save up, we dine, we generally rave with appreciation ... and then we rarely go back. There's a whole other category of London restaurants in my world that I'm ashamed to admit I've never bothered writing about. My dependable "go tos" have quality food, reliable service, pleasant dining rooms and convenient locations. All are less expensive than their Michelin-starred cousins; some dramatically so. Here are my thus-far unsung London dining heroes.

Delaunay
Designed to evoke the grand, late 19th-century dining rooms of the Austro-Hungarian empire, Delaunay manages to balance elegance and sophistication with a laid-back, casual vibe. (A trait it has in common with its sister restaurants The Wolseley and Colbert.) The food is straight out of Vienna: schnitzel, goulash, spaetzle, struedel, Sacher torte. It's all excellent. Schnitzel has a light, crunchy coating surrounding meat that's still moist. Goulash comes with the kind of tart, thick soured cream you don't get here, but remember from trips to Munich and further east, while the spaetzle looks and tastes home made. Their Sacher torte, IMHO, is far better than the "original" recipe the Hotel Sacher serves up.  If you're feeling like something lighter, the menu has the feel of a posh grill, with plenty of steaks and seafood options. The latter is particularly good on the starters, where prawn cocktails, crab salads and oysters are always available.

They open early and do a wide range of breakfast options, from hearty cooked fare to an impressive range of Vienna-style pastries. Given its central location at the top of The Aldwych, where Kingsway runs into it, it's no surprise this is a popular venue for business breakfasts. They have a private room at the back that's ideal for mid-sized corporate events. It's also just on the edge of the theatre district, so a great option for pre-show dinners. It crops up a lot as a meeting point for old friends and, though always crowded, the staff never seem to be rushing you along. We recently lingered over dinner from 6:30 until late trains started beckoning around 11.

The Delaunay is the most expensive of the options listed here, with food a bit more than average and the wine list pushing into fine dining territory. You'll work hard to keep your choices under £40 a bottle. Happily, there are more frugal options for visiting, including a bargain pre-theatre menu and "The Counter" ... and informal cafe up front that sells pastries and sandwiches in a coffee bar atmosphere.

28-50 Wine Workshop and Kitchen
I've been a regular patron of this casual offering from Michelin-gilded duo Agnar Sverrisson and Xavier Rousset (Texture, Le Manoir) since their original venture in a basement off Fetter Lane circa 2010. Now there are three. My favourite occupies a light-flooded corner on a back street in Marylebone, the other is tucked in to smaller lanes just west of Regent Street. If you recognise the significance of the name ... the latitude lines between which wine grapes can be grown ... you'll grasp the hook of the place. It's all about wine, and was one of the first restaurants in London to take their by-the-glass wine list very seriously. Sommeliers rotate the bottles on offer frequently and present selections from a wide range of styles and countries. All of the servers are highly trained, able to explain more about the lists and recommend culinary pairings.

The menu changes regularly but maintains an elegant simplicity: light salads, shellfish, terrines and pates for starters; steaks, game, grilled fish for mains. Every dish has been concocted with wine in mind, making this the kind of place you can start with wine and order the food to match. Sverrisson is Icelandic, so you'll usually see some Nordic elements on offer like gravlax, open sandwiches or Icelandic fish pie ... some dusted with his trademark volcanic ash. (It's good, really.) There are sharing platters, too, perfect when you want to concentrate on wine tasting or are just dropping in for a drink before heading somewhere else. Rousset, who was the wine guy, has left the partnership to start his own place, but I think the oenological ethos and expertise was so deeply embedded by the time he left to make his loss invisible to the regular diner.

The temptation of ordering by-the-glass can drive the price up, but if you behave yourself there are bargains to be had. Especially for lunch and early dinners between 6 and 7, when 3 courses for £21 is one of London's great bargains.

Brasserie Blanc
Raymond Blanc started the trend that gave rise to 28-50: the acclaimed Michelin starred chef launching a chain of reasonably-priced restaurants so more people can experience of his style. And, presumably, so he can expand his revenues with a higher-margin, lower labour-cost operating model. In 1996, long before I could even imagine affording dinner at his flagship Le Manoir aux Quat'Saisons, I met up with friends at his newly-opened Le Petit Blanc. It was the first of what became a chain of 18 Brasserie Blancs, five in London.

Blanc wanted to bring the high quality and seasonal approach of simple brasseries in French country towns to England. There was nothing quite like it at its price point when it launched, and though it now has competition from chains like Cafe Rouge and Cote, it still stands in a category all its own. Despite being a chain, the restaurants always feel like one-offs, with excellent service and great attention to detail. Menus change with the season but are always authentically French. The plates coming out of the kitchen always feel like someone's prepared them with love. This is no doubt why we've been to more of these than any other chain restaurant in England, regularly going to the Covent Garden location (great for pre-opera dinners), St. Paul's (excellent for work) and South Bank (on the way to the train home) in London, while calling the Winchester branch our local. Despite being a chain, the decor varies between locations. They all, however, share a cozy, romantic warmth. Early in our courtship we had a memorable meal in the Cheltenham branch, from which I will always remember them taking great care over my then-boyfriend's allergy while bringing me extras of the extraordinary freshly salted and roasted local tomatoes that he couldn't eat.

We have only one complaint: there's no branch convenient enough for us to use on our regular outings with my mother-in-law. For that...

Osteria Antica Bologna
With its wood panelling and compact interiors, this neighbourhood bolthole in Clapham is surprisingly cozy despite its location on bustling Northcote Road. It's also comfortingly authentic, from the all-Italian staff to an all-Italian wine list and a menu full of regional Italian dishes that change seasonally. Chef Marzio Zacchi worked with Giorgio Locatelli at Zafferano, so there's a touch of fine dining earnestness and quality here at everyday restaurant prices.

It's not universally excellent: last visit, my pasta with wild boar sauce was eye-rollingly fantastic while my husband described his crab pasta as "pretty basic". I was dying to pinch a bite of my mother-in-law's enticing fritto misto (she said it was wonderful), but wasn't thrilled with the cannoli ... finger-sized and with a filling that lacked the density of proper cannoli cream, it suggested that while they might have Italians in the kitchen, none of them came from anywhere south of Naples. But it certainly passes my most important Italian restaurant test. Is it as good, or better, than I can do at home? Yes. And far better than most Italian places in London, which default to quick-and-easy basics and strip out authentic flavours to suit an Anglo palate. With my favourite moderately-priced Italian restaurant, Luce e Limoni, inconveniently located in a part of London beyond all of our usual flight paths, the Osteria has become my favourite spot for getting a comforting taste of my childhood.

Outlaw's is a fish-lover's dream (with a nightmare bill)

Ask the average Brit to name a famous seafood chef, and Rick Stein's name will inevitably top the list. Serious foodies, however, will probably default to his protege Nathan Outlaw.

After learning his trade at several well-known restaurants, he opened his own place and got his first Michelin star at the tender age of 25. He's a frequent guest chef on the BBC's Saturday Kitchen, and his eponymous Cornwall-based flagship holds two Michelin stars. Heading to Fowey for dinner is no simple undertaking, however, so we were excited to hear that he'd opened a place in London.

Outlaw's at The Capital is a small, elegant restaurant tucked into a boutique hotel in a Knightsbridge backstreet near Harrods. In a part of London synonymous with bling, it's a tasteful room done with amber wood paneling, subtle stripes and cream pottery, where a knowledgeable staff serves with quiet efficiency. While there are other things on the menu, the point of this place is seafood and the tasting menu is a fish-lover's dream. Having made the effort to come here, we could hardly do anything else.

The 5-course tasting menu is £85, the matching wine flight £65. That does not include  the copious add-ons like amuse bouche, pre-deserts and petit fours that often come with the chef's menu. These are definitely Knightsbridge prices.

We started with a whisky-cured salmon, presumably prepared in a sous vide to impart its feather-light, melt-in-the-mouth texture. The saffron kohlrabi and horseradish yogurt was hardly noticeable on the side; I could have used a bit more to balance the dish. That was brilliantly matched with a sharp Etna bianco to cut through the richness of the fish. Next came a fillet of brill served beside a deep-fried, crispy oyster. The contrast of flavours and textures was spot on, as was a sauvignon blanc from the Loire.

Moving from classic cooking to the peasant kitchen, out came red-wine braised octopus with beans and seaweed dressing. This was the best take on this tricky-to-cook fish I've ever eaten, the fantasy recipe you want someone to serve you in a big bowl with piles of crusty bread while sitting on a Mediterranean beach. Sadly, it's never this good on holiday. Some clever Spaniards have injected a bit of Riesling into their Albarino to provide a good match here.

Last up was cod in "devilled butter" with brown shrimps and brussels sprouts. The spices elevated what was otherwise a resolutely traditional dish; even so, it was the least impressive of the savoury courses because of its familiarity. It was the wine that made this course memorable. An all-seafood menu is tough for a red wine-lover; this was the course that gave the sommelier a chance to break old pairing traditions, letting the meaty heft of the cod carry a light, fruity Rully (pinot noir).

We added a cheese course (£10 supplement) which, in retrospect, was unexceptional and not needed to round out the menu. The courses might have been small, but they were filling, and the dessert was exceptional. A rich, dark chocolate fondant tart in a marvellously crisp pastry case, accompanied by poached kumquats in syrup and malted milk ice cream. Why isn't this a standardly-available flavour? Magnificent stuff.

This was a beautifully balanced meal bringing in a variety of fish and cooking styles. My only real complaint would be with that cod dish ... the fish itself is so close to brill that the two courses seemed a bit redundant. Though the brill was elevated by the fried oyster, I'd probably have preferred something like shellfish or smoked eel for that second course to get an even wider variety of fish in.

The great danger when eating here is the add-ons. The base tasting menu and wine flight price is standard and manageable for a nice night out. Once you include that cheese course, the glasses of port to go with it, glasses of champagne to start and coffee to finish, we hit an eye watering total. A wonderful special treat, but most definitely not an everyday restaurant.