On a wet and rainy night in October, there were few more comforting places to be than Arbutus. I had eaten several lunches here over the years, but this was the first time I had enjoyed dinner at the restaurant and it seemed fitting that my guest for the evening was an Italian, keen to assess the London dining scene and gain an insight into the best of British cooking/ produce. 

A festive set menu with a large group including some locals was both the best and the worst way to experience Madsen, a Scandinavian restaurant in South Kensington. On the positive side, our group certainly created its own atmosphere, the alcohol (including Acquavit, a not unpleasant Swedish spirit) flowed liberally and a good time was had by one and all.

Dare I suggest it, but Gilgamesh is definitively not a place for ‘serious’ gastrophiles; put simply, it is somewhere where you go either to be seen or because you want to attempt to star-spot.

A visitor from out of town resulted in an impromptu lunch at Maze earlier this week. As we approached our destination, our guest raised the conversational topic of how so many restaurants managed to survive in London, a city he only passed through around once a year, but where he noticed new openings on each occasion.

I have always associated The Greenhouse with special occasions (birthdays, anniversaries and the like) and so it seemed fitting to come here to claim my award for being Square Meal’s Critic of the Quarter (thank you Square Meal).