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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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Bar Shu
The story goes that a visiting businessman from Chengdu, capital of Sichuan Province in China, found London's Chinese food offerings so inauthentic that he decided to open up his own restaurant with five chefs from home. Well, it's authentic all right, with dishes redolent of smoked chillies and the all-important Sichuan peppercorn. We love the spicy gung bao chicken with peanuts, the dan dan noodles and the mapo doufu (bean curd braised with minced pork and chilli).
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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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Benares
This restaurant, in a prime Mayfair location, is the first independent project of Atul Kochar, who a few years ago became only the second Indian chef in the world to earn a Michelin star. The interior is made up of dark wood, taupe upholstery and cream walls, while the small but choice menu brings together the four corners of India with contemporary dash.
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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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Black & Blue
This new, very stylish steak house with a branch at Borough Market is easily identifiable by the bright red life-size plaster cow standing outside. In addition to a panoply of steaks (from around £13 to £23 ) there are also gourmet burgers (from £8 ).
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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 Elephant
The sumptuous surroundings, attentive staff and excellent food of this Fulham institution with branches around the globe make dining at the Blue Elephant a memorable (if expensive) experience. The atmosphere is romantic, with candlelit tables, fountains and lush 'jungle' foliage though the 'gift shop' at the front is a bit naff. The best time to come is for the fab Sunday brunch (around £22 ).
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Blue Kangaroo
This very family-oriented restaurant allows you to enjoy a meal while watching, via CCTV, your under-eights run wild in the downstairs playroom (from around £3 to £5 ). Adult nerves are soothed with grilled goat's cheese, Thai king prawns and mushroom tagliatelle. The children's menu has homemade fish fingers, nuggets and pizza. There are different activities scheduled each day.
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Blue Légume
This lively but laid-back local has mosaic tables and slightly kooky décor with a little conservatory at the back, though there's nothing odd about the big, late breakfasts. Throughout the day there are light vegetarian snacks and trays of delicate, delicious pastries. Try its signature 'blue vegetable' dish: roasted aubergine with goat's cheese.
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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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Bonds
There are two good reasons for coming to this very smart hotel restaurant: one is to glimpse the awe-inspiring lobby of Threadneedles Hotel; the other is the food. It's a mix of the traditional with the unusual, with dishes like braised pigs' cheeks with chorizo or smoked haddock tortellini with black pudding and buttered leeks.
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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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Brackenbury
The Brackenbury is very much a neighbourhood restaurant, with a friendly vibe and a relaxed atmosphere. Its modern European menu is enticing, with some imaginative starters and a good selection of wines at reasonable prices, ensuring the Brackenbury stands out from the many gastropubs in the immediate vicinity.
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Breakfast Club
Still our favourite place for something to wake up to, especially after a tough Saturday night on the tiles, this bright and flowery oasis in Islington's Camden Passage follows in the footsteps of the Breakfast Club Soho). But, despite the name, breakfast (from around £3 to £7 ) is not the only game here and they also do sandwiches, salads and decent pies (from £8 ).
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Brick Lane Beigel Bake
This renowned round-the-clock bakery turns out some of London's springiest, chewiest bagels and attracts daytime and after-club crowds. It's a slice of real London, but not kosher (in the Jewish sense). The hot salt-beef bagels have eager punters queueing out the door, a sure sign of a good thing.
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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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Bumpkin
This faux rustic outfit is good for an unpretentious helping of old-fashioned comfort food. Wash down everything from dorset crab bruschetta, to beef pie and huge steaks, with a glass of Guinness, Adnam's or some very unusual whisky cocktails. The cooking's not fancy and it does get noisy, but there's something uncomplicatedly pleasant about the experience.
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Busaba Eathai
It's harder to get a seat at this, the original branch of this popular Thai chain, than at its Store St equivalent. Still it's busy and full of life.
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Busaba Eathai Bloomsbury
This is a 21st-century Wagamama-style noodle bar - a bit more stylish with it, but brought to you by the same man, Alan Yau. Below ceiling fans and golden buddhas, customers lap up delicious Thai curries and soups on dark wood benches and communal tables. There's another branch on Wardour St in Soho.
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Busaba Eathai Fitzrovia
We prefer the slightly less hectic Store St premises of this West End favourite, but there are also a couple more locations, including a Wardour St branch. Here the sumptuous Thai menu greets you via an electronic screen outside and the über-styled interior is softened by communal wooden tables. This isn't the place to come for a long and intimate dinner, but it's a superb option for an excellent and (usually) speedy meal of stir-fries and noodles.
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Bush Bar
You have to keep an eye out for this bar/restaurant, housed in a converted warehouse and with its entrance down an alleyway off Goldhawk Rd. It's light and breezy with a wonderful tented terrace, and the decent restaurant and bar attract a trendy media crowd after work with their great cocktails and food. The menu is familiar and comforting - London Particular, salt beef with braised cabbage, smoked haddock fishcakes - rather than inventive.
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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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C&R Café
When we're in the mood for a bit of Asian, we know of no better place than this hole-in-the-wall serving fairly authentic Singapore noodles, laksa (soup noodles with seafood) and gado-gado (salad with peanut sauce). For those who answer to a higher authority, it's halal. There's a larger Westbourne Grove branch.
