Westbourne Park (or, if you’re generous, the borders of Notting Hill) is perhaps not the most obvious location for many Londoners ever to consider visiting.

Diners in Mayfair after sushi do not have to look too far. Chisou is one of many competing options in the area. It is always busy, does a decent job, but offers little that is tangibly different or ground-breaking.

Being famous can sometimes be a problem. People ‘expect’ things of you and wonder whether your latest restaurant venture can possibly be as good as the previous one. Jason Atherton is a great chef and an astute businessman.

Research the Brighton nightlife scene and there is a bit more to this city than gay bars and cavernous venues for stag/hen do’s. Graze (in fact located in more sedate neighbouring Hove) arguably offers the finest dining experience that can be found in the vicinity.

Restaurants in hotels used to be sorry affairs, almost an after-thought for the lonely and/ or unadventurous traveller rather than a destination in its own right.

Don’t be put off either by the name (shared with a brand of potty training wipes) or the location (in the less salubrious part of the Edgware Road); Kandoo does some of the best Middle Eastern food to be found in London.

Expectations inevitably run high whenever it’s a special evening out, you’re dining at a Michelin-starred restaurant and, you’re opting for the tasting menu – which ought to show the chef’s expertise at its best.

Maybe a few decades ago the French felt that they deservedly had the most bragging rights when it came to culinary superiority. Times have changed though. Japan can claim to have more three Michelin-starred restaurants than France and in London, ask many diners what style of cuisine they currently rate most highly, and – best guess – it won’t be French.

Back with a new look and feel, Herne Hill’s Number 22 has the potential to become a well-established local favourite. Large windows, tastefully coloured walls (bold yellow in the back part of the restaurant, acts as a perfect foil to the light blue in the main part), a banquette around the left side and a beautifully tiled bar in the centre create an overall sense of warmth and welcome. 

Visitors to the Carnaby/ Kingley street area of London are not short of culinary options. Even on the sunny lunchtime last week when two of us visited Cha Cha Moon for the first time, and the main criterion for choosing a restaurant beyond its location was the ability to sit outdoors, there exist many other nearby alternatives.

As any estate agent would be only too pleased to tell you, when it comes to location, you need to think very carefully. Therefore, while Marylebone Lane may be a quaint and pretty strip tucked just to the north of Oxford Street, a restaurant isn’t going to survive here unless it does something pretty exceptional.

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.