Vinoteca Marylebone is the sister restaurant of the original Vinoteca wine bar and restaurant in Farringdon. It opened in November last year, but unlike Brawn, the sister restaurant of that other well known wine bar, Terroirs, it has barely registered on the Richter Scale of restaurant openings. I found out about it purely by chance. Thinking I would go to the branch in Farringdon, I stumbled across the details of the Marylebone branch when I went onto the Vinoteca website. Despite the lack of PR fanfare, the restaurant is already doing a thumping trade. It was packed during our visit and justifiable so. Its concept is simple – good, seasonal food, in an ever changing menu, matched with one of the 25 wines that are available by the glass. There are also 280 reasonably priced bottles to choose from.

Vinoteca Marylebone is cosy and intimate. It does not take reservations, but there’s a bar area to drink at while you wait. Due to the lack of carpeting and rugs on the floor, its only drawback was that it was incredibly noisy which made conversation a little difficult. But this can also be construed as fantastically atmospheric.

We started with a heavenly smoked eel with celeriac and apple remoulade and wheaten toast (£8). The eel was delicate, succulent and lightly smoked, and the creaminess of the deftly made remoulade was a perfect match. There was a hint of sweetness in the well-made, flavoursome bread which made this dish all the more appetising. The suggested wine, an Austrian 2009 Kamptal Gruner Veltliner ‘Kies’, Kurt Angerer (£4.50 for 125ml) was a great accompaniment.

Smoked eel

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One of the things that irritate me about a restaurant is when they publish a menu on their website where the prices aren’t reasonably accurate. As was the case with Northbank, their website menu suggests that the average price of a main is £15.75 (range of £12 to £18.50 – accurate at the time of this post). But on their actual menu, the average main costs £17.50 (range of £13.50 to £21). This works out to be about 11% more. I think it’s rather cheeky for a restaurant to not update their prices with reasonable accuracy as it may mislead a customer into going to the restaurant when they might not have otherwise gone. Ok, it’s only a couple of quid, but its still 11%.

The décor at Northbank is pretty swanky. It looks modern and smart, has quite a masculine feel to it, and boasts of a prime location on the Thames overlooking the Tate Modern. With its location, I imagine that its usual crowd are tourists and city types.

A venison, rabbit and hare terrine with quince jelly and toast (£8) was meaty, well seasoned and very tasty. This was very well done, but the piece we got was stingy. It had been very thinly sliced and could have done with about fifty percent more. Cheeky I say.

Venison, rabbit & hare terrine

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My lovely friend JK, who is as much a foodie as I am, liked the idea of trying Fig Bistro in Barnsbury when I suggested it. She often drives past the restaurant, which with its candlelit window, looks cosy and romantic. I’ve never been past the place but I liked the sound of it because Chef Christoffer Hruskova’s CV read well. Having spent a year at King Hans, Denmark’s longest running Michelin starred restaurant, Christoffer embarked on a worldwide culinary tour, taking in kitchens such as Tetsuya’s in Sydney, one of the ‘50 Best Restaurants in the World’, and the now closed Patria in New York City which I use to love when I lived in NYC.

The restaurant is as cute as JK described. It’s warm and homely with brick walls and woodwork furnishings. But our meal got off to an unpromising start. Our waitress had no idea what was in the Cornish charcuterie, one of the starters on the menu. She sent another waiter around to answer our questions, but he was also unable to tell us what was in the Cornish charcuterie or how a main course of Herdwick lamb rump Provencale was cooked. I was floored that the waiting staff at a restaurant could be that ignorant about the dishes on a menu, especially one as short as this (about 5 to 6 options per course).

For starters, I decided to go for the pan-fried scallops and cauliflower (£8) which was part of the ‘Bistro Special menu’ (4 courses for £35). Initially the waiter declined to let me order it (as it was part of the set menu), but with a gentle nudge he finally relented.

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I like Dean Street Townhouse. My last meal there (to read about that meal, click here) was very enjoyable and it’s the kind of place I’d happily go to again and again. I was especially looking forward to trying the grouse that I had spotted on their menu. Not that many restaurants in London serve grouse even when it’s in season, so it’s a bit of a treat.

To start was a soused Cornish mackerel with sea purslane (£9). As one would expect, there were wonderful vinegary properties to the fish, similar to what you would find in the Scandinavian pickled varieties. The accompanying purslane, tapenade and wafer-thin crisp breads worked well with the mackerel, although this dish didn’t feel particularly autumnal. But it was great if pickled fish is your thing.

Soused Cornish mackerel with sea purslane

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Note: This restaurant has now been acquired by Faucet Inn Pub Group.

When Gordon Ramsay took over the freehold of The Warrington and launched a gastropub there in February 2008, I lamented the lost of Ben’s Thai Restaurant. Ben’s Thai was situated on the first floor, above the pub (which is where the gastropub is now), and although it was far from perfect, it had personality. Its off-the-wall décor fit in with the quirky charm of the pub below – a lavishly decorated outfit with art nouveau stained glass windows, carved wood works and a marble topped mahogany bar. For added character, it was rumoured that the building was once used as a brothel.

But under Gordon Ramsay, the gastropub, aptly named The Warrington, became cool, stark and a little austere. When I first went there for dinner soon after its opening, it was hard to reconcile the sleek, new dining area with the pub below that was bursting with old world charm. Other than this oddity, I remembered the food being pretty decent.

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I liked the décor at Bob Bob Ricard, a self-billed deluxe diner. A throwback to 1930s glam, I adored the train carriage booth seating and the buttons which allowed you to call for the champagne. Nice! The marble columns and mosaic floor finish off the glamorous look.

But the décor was about all I liked about at the restaurant. My starter of scallop and shrimp pie, set in a scallop shell and topped with piped mash potato was beautifully presented. But the scallop was a bit fishy, suggesting that it wasn’t fresh. The accompanying cream sauce with mushrooms and shrimp was nice, although unpleasantly, there were bits of grit in it.

Scallop & shrimp pie

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I have always thought highly of Richard Corrigan. I’ve been to his now closed Lindsay House and Bentley’s Oyster Bar and Grill and enjoyed them both. His style is big and bold, with lots of flavour, and it usually scores high on the comfort factor scale. So when I went to Corrigan’s Mayfair, I went with great expectations. This was the ‘replacement’ restaurant for Lindsay House which use to hold one Michelin star. In fact, when this place opened about a year and a half ago, there was much fanfare and great critical acclaim.

Well I’m not sure what happened between then and now, but my meal was riddled with disappointments. A starter of wood pigeon, soft boiled quail’s egg with sweet and sour onion (£15.50) turned out to be a terrine. Surely this should have been clearly stated on the menu? So while I was expecting a hot dish, I received a cold one instead. The terrine was only memorable for the fact that it was so heavily seasoned that the salt killed off any flavour.

Wood pigeon & soft boiled quail’s egg

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After several unsuccessful attempts, I finally managed to secure a reservation at Dean Street Townhouse! You couldn’t imagine my excitement. This restaurant has set the blogosphere alight, and I’ve been pretty keen to try it ever since it opened late last year. For those familiar with the Soho House Group (Houses include Soho House, Shoreditch House; restaurants include Cecconi’s, Cafe Boheme, Electric Brasserie), it’s pretty easy to picture how stylish it is. The restaurant is housed in an unmissable beautiful cream coloured Georgian building that seems to light up Dean Street. The interior doesn’t disappoint either, with its plush booth seating, red leather backed chairs, vintage chandeliers and a massive American-style bar that runs the length of the room. This place spells glam, and it’s been known to draw in the rich and famous!

The food is billed as British, and for starters I chose the scallops in the half shell (£10.50) which were juicy and succulent. They were covered with some finely chopped wild boar and ramson (wild garlic) that gave them a crispy finish. Lots of butter rounded off the ensemble, leaving the scallops exploding with rich, decadent, buttery overtones. However the presentation – two shells plonked on the plate with no additional garnishing – seemed dull.

Scallops in the half shell

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