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Locanda Locatelli
Co-founder, celebrity chef Giorgio Locatelli, has brought some of the best Italian cooking to London in the past decade and the menu here continues to show his inventiveness and attention to detail. It's still hard to get a table here without booking way in advance, but it's worth the effort, especially for the sublime pasta dishes (from £8 ).
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Lucio
One of our favourite Italian eateries in London, Lucio is decidedly top-end but not overly so. Try the exquisitely cooked pasta with clams, the crab ravioli or, when in season, the deep-fried courgette. The surrounds are understatedly stylish, the clientele subdued and the service seamless.
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Marine Ices
As its name suggests, this Chalk Farm institution started out as an ice-cream parlour (in fact, a Sicilian gelateria ) but these days it does some savoury dishes as well, including pizzas and hearty pasta dishes. Be sure to try some of the excellent ice cream, which has its own menu.
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Medcalf
Despite its erratic kitchen hours (the bar itself is open all day), Medcalf is one of the best-value hang-outs in Exmouth Market. Housed in a beautifully converted butcher shop dating back to 1912, Medcalf serves up innovative yet relatively affordable British fare. Highlights on our visit were whelks and winkles with parsley and white wine, scrumptious devilled kidneys and goose with black pudding that was cooked to perfection.
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Mesón Los Barriles
This restaurant inside Spitalfields Market serves up some very fresh fish main courses but hardly anyone comes here for those. The draw at the 'Barrels House' is the excellent selection of tapas (around £3 to around £8 ). Sawdust on the floor and air-dried hams overhead add to the rustic market feel of the place.
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Metrogusto
This laid-back place with delightful modern art on the walls serves progressive, modern (if somewhat pricey) Italian cuisine. Choose something like pizza or pasta or more substantial mains such as the carne del giorno (meat of the day) and pesce di mercato (fish of the market). Seating is a bit cramped.
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Narrow
This gastropub with commanding views of the Thames may or may not be Mr Ramsay's idea of slumming it - or at least be Gordon without the glam. Housed in what was once the Limehouse Basin dockmaster's residence, the place comes with a lot of history and tradition and the food reflects that. Expect such old favourites as London Particular (pea and ham soup), braised Gloucester pig cheeks with bashed neeps and Huntingdon fidget pie made with bacon, onion and apple.
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Newens Maids Of Honour
The name of this quirky Kew tearoom a short distance from the main entrance to Kew Gardens comes from its famed dessert, supposedly created by Anne Boleyn, Henry VIII's ill-fated second wife. It is made of puff pastry, lemon, almonds and curd cheese, and anyone visiting should try it at least once (around £3 ).
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Olivo
This colourful restaurant specialises in the food and wine of Sardinia and Sicily, and has a dedicated clientele of sophisticates who, quite frankly, would rather keep it to themselves. Not surprising, really, because this gem near Victoria station is a true gem. As a general rule, drink Sicilian and eat Sardinian. Excellent pasta dishes (from £11 .
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Ottolenghi
The busiest of what is now a three-outlet operation, including the Notting Hill branch, this very sleek, very minimalist bakery-cum-restaurant looks as good as its food tastes, and that's saying something. The set menus (from £9 ) are great value for food of this quality, although the desserts are the real highlight. The electric cables hanging over the table are actually for toasters at breakfast.
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Paternoster Chop House
Delightfully British fare is on offer at this Conran City restaurant next to St Paul's Cathedral. Dishes range from the 'beast of the day' (around £21 ) to a huge shellfish and grill selection and other traditional favourites such as bubble and squeak, and haggis. Sunday brunch (noon to ) features a carvery.
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Petersham Nurseries Café
In a greenhouse at the back of the gorgeously situated Petersham Nurseries is this award-winning cafe straight out of the pages of The Secret Garden . Well-heeled locals tuck into confidently executed food that often began life in the nursery gardens - organic vegetable dishes, such as artichokes braised with preserved lemon sage and black olives, feature alongside seasonal plates of, say, roasted quail with walnut sauce or white polenta with squid and sherry butter. There's a teahouse ( - Tue-Sat, from Sun) should you have failed to book at the cafe (and well in advance).
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Porters
Porters specialises in pies, long a staple of English cooking but not regularly found on menus nowadays. There are unusual ones like lamb and apricot or chicken and broccoli as well as the more commonplace steak, Guinness and mushroom pie. It also does a mean fish and chips and roast beef with Yorkshire pudding.
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Portrait
This stunningly located restaurant above the excellent National Portrait Gallery - with views over Trafalgar Sq and Westminster! - and just past the Tudors is a place for a decent meal after the gallery; why not pop in for brunch when the two-course menu is around £20 . Unfortunately, Portrait is restricted in its opening times by the gallery, so it only serves (early-ish) dinner on Thursday and Friday.
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Quality Chop House
Subtitled 'For people who love food' (as opposed to those who have stapled their mouths shut?) this chop house is a bit faux-retro for our tastes, but the food is good and harkens back to its past life as a workmen's caf with white-and-black tiled floor and wooden benches. But now the old-fashioned British staples like eel, sausage with bubble and squeak and salmon fish cakes (around £12 ) are set before a middle-class media crowd. There's a two-course set lunch weekdays for around £10 .
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Racine
Regional French cooking is the vehicle here and all-round, dedicated service to the customer the destination. Expect the likes of tête de veau , the classic French veal dish, grilled rabbit with mustard and smoked duck. Being French and very classic, dishes might feel heavy to some, but the sauces and the desserts are all spot on.
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River Café
The restaurant that spawned the world-famous eponymous cookery books is a serious treat off Fulham Palace Rd, overlooking Barnes across the river. The simple, precise cooking showcases seasonal ingredients sourced with fanatical expertise. Booking is essential, as it's still a hot favourite of the Fulham set.
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Roast
Iqbal Wahhab of Cinnamon Club fame has perched this unique restaurant directly above Borough Market, so he won't have to go far for his raw materials. The focal point here is the glassed-in kitchen with an open spit, where ribs of beef, suckling pigs, birds and game are roasted. The emphasis is on roasted meats and seasonal vegetables, though there are lighter dishes from salads through to grilled fish.
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Roussillon
On a quiet side street off Pimlico Rd, Roussillon offers such fine service, lovely muted decor and settings and fresh English ingredients dexterously cooked à la française that we're almost hesitant to show off this sparkling gem to the world. There's no à la carte; choose from among eight starters and main courses at lunch or dinner, or there's a more extravagant tasting menu (around £70 ) of eight courses. The Menu Légumes (around £60 ) puts vegetarian cooking in the Michelin league.
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Royal Exchange Grand Café & Bar
This cafe sits in the in the middle of the covered courtyard of the beautiful Royal Exchange Bank building. The food runs the gamut from sandwiches to oysters (from around £11 a half-dozen), fisherman's pie (around £19 ) and seafood platters (from around £27 ). It's the perfect place for an informal business meeting.
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Rules
Established in 1798, this very posh and very British establishment is London's oldest restaurant. The menu is inevitably meat-oriented - Rules specialises in classic game cookery, serving up tens of thousands of birds between mid-August and January from its own estate - but fish dishes are also available. Puddings are traditional: trifles, treacles and lashings custard.
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Sarastro
Any place that bills itself as 'The Show after the Show' has got to be more concerned with entertainment than food. Come to Sarastro, behind the Theatre Royal and round the corner from the Royal Opera House, for opera music (piped and impromptu) and faux baroque decor that is camper than a bunch of Boy Scouts (think kitsch frescoes and fake 'opera boxes' adorning three sides of the restaurant). It's all quirky good fun and certainly a night you won't forget.
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Simpson's-in-the-Strand
For traditional English roasts and joints (as in meat) from the trolley, Simpson's is hard to beat. It's been dishing up fleshy fare in a fine panelled dining room since 1848 (when it was called Simpson's Divan and Tavern). It's a gorgeous place, although something of a museum piece these days. Breakfast is available from weekdays.
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Sketch
The stunning collection of bars and restaurants at what was once the Christian Dior headquarters in Mayfair remains a draw for fashionistas, the curious and the downright loaded. The Gallery restaurant downstairs buzzes informally in shimmering white and features video art projections. The Glade on the ground floor is the place for affordable lunch (two/three courses for around £20 ) and the stunning Parlour patisserie to the right of the main entrance is great for tea and cakes. The ultimate attraction is the more formal Lecture Room & Library upstairs, where the high prices and haute cuisine in sumptuous surroundings from three-starred Michelin chef Pierre Gagnaire attract an exclusive crowd. Upstairs you'll also find the East Bar, with a dozen of London's most unusual individual loos.
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St John
Clerkenwell's most famous restaurant and its famous carve 'im up pig logo has spawned its own book ( Nose to Tail Eating, by chef Fergus Henderson), and indeed this much-acclaimed, enduringly hip place really is for adventurous carnivores who want to sample old-style English cuisine. The signature dish is roast bone-marrow salad with parsley, and the changing daily menu includes such specialities as chitterlings and chips, calf's brain terrine and smoked eel with beetroot. There are more familiar choices, including the odd vegetarian dish, but St John, with its minimalist white dining room and patient staff, remains a Rabelaisian experience.
