Restaurants in England
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Tsunami
The food at this celebrated restaurant exhibits the style and taste you'd expect from an ex-Nobu chef. The sushi is exquisite, but it's the more unusual dishes, like ebi prawns wrapped in Greek pastry and butternut squash, and especially the mint-tea duck with pear and sweet honey miso, that will really bowl you over.
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Gordon Ramsay at Claridge’s
This match made in heaven – London’s most celebrated chef in arguably its grandest hotel – will make you weak at the knees. A meal in the gorgeous art deco dining room is a special occasion indeed; the Ramsay flavours will have you reeling, from the pressed foie gras marinated in white port and the cannon of salt marsh lamb with crystallised walnuts and cumin, all the way to the cheese trolley, whether you choose the one with French, British or Irish number plates. Consider the six-course tasting menu (£80).
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Alma de Cuba
This extraordinary venture has seen the transformation of a Polish church into a Miami-style Cuban extravaganza, a bar and restaurant where you can feast on a suckling pig (the menu heavily favours meat) or clink a perfectly made mojito at the long bar. ¡Salud!
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Afghan Kitchen
This minute two-floor gem serves up some of Islington’s best-value and most interesting cuisine. It features traditional Afghan dishes such as qurma suhzi gosht (lamb cooked with spinach) and qurma e mahi (fish stew) alongside a generous vegetarian selection, including borani kado (pumpkin with yoghurt) and moong dall (lentil dhal). It’s absolutely brilliant value, and rightly popular so book ahead for the evenings.
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Fishworks
This Bath-based chain was London’s first truly French poissonnerie (fishmonger) with a restaurant attached, its entranceway counters piled high with shaved ice, crustaceans and fish. We return regularly, especially for the sublime Dartmouth crab eaten cold and the incomparable zuppa del pescatore (fisherman’s soup; £19), a symphony of delights from the deep. There is also a Marylebone branch.
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Mildred’s
Central London’s most inventive veggie restaurant, Mildred’s heaves at lunchtime so don’t be shy about sharing a table in the sky-lit dining room. Expect the likes of roasted fennel and chickpea terrine and puy lentil casserole as well as more standard (and hugely portioned) salads and stir-fries. Drinks include juices, coffee, beer and organic wine.
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Pan-American Club
A truly beautiful warehouse conversion has created this top-class restaurant and bar, easily one of the best dining addresses in town. Fancy steak dinners and other American classics can be washed down with drinks from the Champagne Lounge.
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Akbar's
Bit of an Egyptian theme going on at this exceptionally popular Indian restaurant – sarcophagi and cat-gods watch over the cutting-edge decor beneath a 'night-in-the-desert' ceiling. The traditional curry dishes come in pyramid-size portions, and they don't take bookings – expect to wait 30 minutes for a table on weekend nights.
reviewed
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Brick Lane Beigel Bake
A relic of London's Jewish East End, it's more a takeaway than a cafe and sells dirt-cheap bagels. They're a top snack on a bellyful of booze.
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Boxwood Cafe
An accessible entry point into Gordon Ramsay's eating empire, Boxwood offers set-price lunch and pre-7pm menus (two/three courses £21/25). It's intended as an informal option – although you wouldn't guess it from the attentive staff, faultless food and staid decor.
reviewed
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Kennington Tandoori
This local curry house is a favourite of MPs from across the river, including former Prime Minister John Major.
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Fifteen
Jamie Oliver's culinary philanthropy started at Fifteen, set up to give unemployed young people a shot at a career. The Italian food is beyond excellent, and, surprisingly, even those on limited budgets can afford a visit. In the trattoria, a croissant and coffee will only set you back £3.50, while a £10 pasta makes for a delicious lunch. From Old St tube station, take City Rd and after 300m turn right into Westland Place.
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Momo
Sister of the celebrated 404 in Paris’ Marais district, this wonderfully atmospheric North African restaurant is stuffed with cushions and lamps, and staffed by all-dancing, tambourine-playing waiters. It’s a funny old place that manages to be all things to all diners, who range from romantic couples to raucous office-party ravers. Service is very friendly and the dishes are as exciting as you dare to be, so after the meze eschew the traditional and ordinary tajine (stew cooked in a traditional clay pot) and tuck into the splendid Moroccan speciality pastilla, a scrumptious nutmeg and pigeon pie. There’s outside seating in this quiet backstreet in the warmer months.
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Ottolenghi
This is the pick of Upper Street’s many eating options – a brilliantly bright, white space that’s worth a trip to see the eye-poppingly beautiful cakes and bread in the front deli alone. But get a table at this temple to good food and you’ll really appreciate it. At lunch you choose between the dishes spread out on the counter, while in the evening there’s á la carte dining, too, though so fanatical about ingredient quality are the chefs that the menu is not confirmed until 5pm. Weekend brunch here is fabulous, though you’ll usually have to wait for a table. Reservations are essential in the evenings.
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Gordon Ramsay
Like or loathe the ubiquitous Scot, his eponymous restaurant is one of Britain's finest – one of only four in the country with three Michelin stars. Book ahead and dress up: jeans and T-shirts are forbidden – if you've seen the chef on the telly, you know not to argue.
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Garrison
The Garrison’s traditional green-tiled exterior and rather distressed, beach-shack interior are both appealing, and it boasts an actual cinema in its basement, but it’s the food – pressed ham-hock terrine, calf’s liver with smoked bacon, lamb with rosemary and garlic – that lures the punters to this evergreen gastropub. If you don’t fancy nearly bashing your neighbour’s elbow every time you lift your fork, though, come for breakfast (8am to 11.30am weekdays) or weekend brunch (9am to 11.30am).
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1 Lombard St
Cassoulet goes head-to-head with bangers-and-mash in the brasserie, under the domes of a heritage-listed bank building, and both the French and the Brits come out winners.
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Asadal
If you fancy Korean but want a bit more style thrown into the act than what you’ll find at Assa, head for this spacious basement restaurant next to the Holborn tube station. The kimchi (pickled Chinese cabbage with chillies) is searing, the barbecues (£7 to £11.50) are done on your table and the bibimbab – rice served in a sizzling pot topped with thinly sliced beef, preserved vegetables and chilli-laced soybean paste – the best in town.
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Inn the Park
This stunning wooden cafe and restaurant in St James’s Park is run by the Irish wonder that is Oliver Peyton and offers cakes and tea as well as substantial and quality British food. The recent addition of extra seating under the trees for the cafe part and the new roof terrace are perfect, but if you’re up for a special dining experience, come here for dinner, when the park is quiet and slightly illuminated. One of London’s most gorgeous structures and locations.
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Oxo Tower Restaurant & Brasserie
The conversion of the old Oxo Tower on the South Bank into housing with this restaurant on the 8th floor helped spur much of the dining renaissance south of the river. In the stunning glassed-in terrace you have a front-row seat for the best view in London, and you pay for this (not the fusion food) handsomely in the brasserie and stratospherically in the restaurant. Fish dishes – confit sea bass with truffle gnocchi, black bream escabèche – usually comprise half the menu.
reviewed
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Electric Brasserie
The leather-and-cream look is suitably cool for the brasserie that's attached to the Electric Cinema. And the food's very good, too; head to the back area for a darker, more moody dinner. The two-/three-course pre-7pm dinner (£14/17) is served Monday to Friday.
reviewed
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Cap'n Jaspers
Unique, quirky and slightly insane, this cabin-kiosk has been delighting bikers, tourists, locals and fishermen for decades with its motorised gadgets and teaspoons attached by chains. The menu is of the burger and bacon butty school – trying to eat a 'half a yard of hot dog' is a Plymouth rite of passage. Try the local crab rolls – the filling could have been caught by the bloke sitting next to you.
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Busaba Eathai
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 uberstyled 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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Barrafina
They may not be as reasonably priced as you'd get in Spain, but the quality of the tapas served here is excellent.
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Magpie Café
The Magpie flaunts its reputation for serving the 'World's Best Fish and Chips'. Damn fine they are too, but the world and his dog knows about it, and summertime queues can stretch along the street. Fish and chips from the takeaway counter cost £5; the sit-down restaurant is dearer, but offers a wide range of seafood dishes, from grilled sea bass to paella.
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