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Acorn House
London's first totally eco-friendly restaurant with 10 trainees as fresh as the seasonal ingredients they're working with, an open kitchen and monthly changing menus. The dining room is a bit narrow to our taste but it accommodates a well-stocked and very long bar.
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Admiralty
The flagship restaurant of the restored Somerset House has a traditional interior and modern French food. There's a lovely, calming terrace outside overlooking the Thames on which to while away your meal time. The degustation menus are truly sublime - and here's a rarity - there is even a full vegetarian one.
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Andrew Edmunds
This cosy little place is exactly the sort of restaurant you wish you could find everywhere in Soho. Two floors of wood-panelled bohemia with a mouth-watering menu of French (confit of duck) and European (penne with goat's cheese) country cooking - it's a real find and reservations are essential.
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Arbutus
Minimalist-looking Arbutus burst onto the scene in 2006, winning three awards in quick succession, so here's hoping that doesn't go to its head. The changing menu is mouth-watering, with dishes like beef bavette tartare, saddle of rabbit, bouillabaisse and even braised pig's head. Wine handily comes in carafes.
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Bacchus
The speciality of chef Nuno Mendes - sous-vide cooking in which ingredients are slow-cooked in a vacuum for hours and hours - is put to the test at this smart erstwhile pub and succeeds. The rabbit mousse is just this side of absolute perfection but you must try the langoustines with Catalan mix to experience one of Mendes' signature foams (in this case a hot garlic one). For mains, expect the likes of warm cod wrapped in chicken skin and sesame-crusted squab with foie gras.
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Bar Gansa
Bar Gansa is a focal point of the Camden scene, has a late licence and is howlingly popular. The menus - mostly tapas - are good value, especially the weekday lunch menu, when three tapas with olives and bread are around £7 . There's live flamenco on Monday evening.
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Barrafina
This tiny tapas bar has caught Soho by the tastebuds and doesn't look like letting go for quite a while. Along with gambas al ajillo (prawns in garlic), there are more unusual things like tuna tartare and grilled quails with aioli. If you can't get enough, try one of the large platters of cold Spanish meats (from £10 ).
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Bermondsey Kitchen
As it's a great place to curl up on the sofas with the Sunday newspapers or enjoy brunch, it's hardly surprising that many locals seem to have made this their second living room. The Modern European food (with a nod towards the Mediterranean) that comes from the open grill is as homey and unpretentious as the rough-hewn tables, and the refreshingly brief menu (five starters and as many mains) changes daily.
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Bibendum
Housed in the listed Art Nouveau Michelin House (1911), Bibendum offers upstairs dining in a spacious and light room with stained-glass windows, where you can savour fabulous and creative food, and what, it must be said, is fairly ordinary service. The Bibendum Oyster Bar offers a front-row seat of the building's architectural finery while lapping up terrific native and rock oysters.
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Blah Blah Blah
This vegetarian institution has been packing them in for years with imaginative, well-realised food and informal (and recently renovated) surrounds. Dishes lean towards the Mediterranean, though not exclusively, and you can bring your own bottle. Crayons are supplied for doodling on the paper-covered tables while you await your order.
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Blue Print Café
Behind glass on the 1st floor of the Design Museum and aided by opera glasses at each table, customers have stunning views of Tower Bridge and the so-called Gherkin at 30 St Mary Axe. Food is simple but tasty, with the most straightforward dishes usually working best. Look for Jerusalem artichoke soup, beetroot salad and fish dishes such as bream with seakale, cabbage, clams and bacon.
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Boxwood Café
Gordon Ramsay's New York-style (almost) café is the kind of place you can come for a single course or a glass of wine, and while the décor is a little bland - way too dark in the depths of the main restaurant - the food is generally first rate. Simple starters like fried West Mersea oysters with fennel and lemon, salmon ceviche and glazed pea and leek tart are generally tastier than the fussier main courses. Run-the-gamut tasting menus start from around £50 .
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Brula
This attractive and upmarket restaurant near Marble Hill House seems to get it just right. The service and elegant decor complement the fantastically fresh and clever menu of modern French cooking and the stained-glass windows give the place a unique feel that keeps the locals coming in droves.
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Butcher & Grill
This combination grill and butcher shop has made quite a slap south of the river, winning awards as fast as it sizzles T-bones. But while not everyone likes the idea of seeing their meat au naturel on entry, the quality of the ingredients, the wide choice of sauces and the views from the main dining room (all brickwork and exposed ducts) are more than compensation.
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Café Corfu
Corfu is the best of a host of Greek restaurants in the neighbourhood. Décor is sleek and stylish, the delicious food feels light (modern Greek?) but fills, and there's more than retsina to slake your thirst. A belly dancer and DJ aid the digestion on Friday and Saturday nights and there's live Greek music on Sunday.
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Café on the Hill
Largely organic, this place has been a real hit with locals, who come here in droves. It's all you could hope for in a local café - seasonal menus, all-day breakfast, good coffee, light lunches, afternoon tea, relatively adventurous evening meals, newspapers and a welcoming atmosphere.
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Cantina del Ponte
The general consensus is that the most affordable Conran establishment at Butler's Wharf is the most disappointing. Sometimes a lack of detail in the accompaniments just spoils a salad or pasta dish, at other times a meat or fish dish just doesn't turn out right. The pizzas generally pass muster, though.
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Cantina Italia
Though this funky little trattoria with modern art on the walls and a Sardinian connection does more ambitious secondi such as the stew-like stinco di maiale (around £14 ), most people come here for the fine pizzas (from around £5 to £9 ) and pasta (from around £8 to £12 ). Don't miss the linguine tossed with bottarga (cured mullet roe), oil, garlic, parsley and red pepper flakes.
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Capital
Of the five restaurants in London to have won two Michelin stars, the Capital behind Harrods department store is probably the least known - and so much the better. The modern yet warmth-inducing décor, the welcoming and accommodating staff and chef Eric Chavot's award-winning dishes - a large, glass plate like an artist's palate of duck preparations called assiette Landaise, pan-roasted lobster with crab ravioli, roasted fillet of venison served with pan-fried foie gras - all remain our secrets. And now yours. The tasting menu is around £70 (add around £50 for accompanying wines).
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Casale Franco
Still our favourite cheap and cheerful Italian on Upper St, Casale Franco offers the usual Italian comfort food (the pizza is excellent) in warm surroundings. Avoid sitting on the 1st floor (nowheresville) and kill for a outside table in the warm weather. Service is friendly and attentive.
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Chelsea Kitchen
This spartan place - part of the Stockpot empire which has branches all around town - has some of the cheapest food in London and is almost like eating out at a restaurant. Sturdy staples include the likes of French onion soup, spaghetti bolognese, lasagne and steak. Nothing too inventive, just good, hot grub.
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Cheyne Walk Brasserie & Salon
With a reputation for especially tender steaks, the focus of the food preparation at this brasserie is the large open grill in the centre of the ground-floor dining room. However, you might prefer prawns flambéed in pastis sardine with a delightful salad of green beans, pistachio and mint. The belle époque decoration is just this side of kitsch, with turquoise banquettes, red leather chairs, chandeliers and crystal lamps topped with pink shades. From the very red star-dotted upstairs cocktail salon are great views of the Thames.
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Chez Bruce
This eatery, though Michelin-starred, actually feels like a quality local than a flash restaurant. The restaurant's rustic façade, beside leafy Wandsworth Common, belies a modern interior. The fixed-price-only set-up means that there's fortunately no need to scrimp on desserts.
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Clerkenwell Dining Room
Up there with Club Gascon and St John in producing some of Clerkenwell's best food, the Dining Room is a little less formal and expensive than those two. Chef Andrew Thompson's menu here, although regularly changing, sticks fairly closely to classic combinations with dishes like salmon with sorrel sauce and lamb with rosemary jus.
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Club Gascon
One of Clerkenwell's leading restaurants since it was awarded a Michelin star in 2002, Club Gascon takes a different approach to fine dining, with a selection of tapas-style portions (that would, naturally, leave an ordinary tapas restaurant for dust). They're arranged in five categories, one of which is entirely devoted to foie gras; order from about four per person. A set menu called Le Marché starts from £45 .
