If you don’t know who LondonFoodie is, then let me introduce you. He is a fabulous food blogger who bravely quit his investment banking job last year to take up his calling in food. A foodie journey to Japan ensued, during which time he sampled his way around the many delights in the cities of Tokyo and Kyoto, all of which you can read about on his blog. This year he became a student of the esteemed Le Cordon Bleu Cookery School to study for his Grand Diplome. He also has a new venture, the London Foodie Japanese Supper Club. The menu includes a five-course tasting, and ever the gracious host, diners firstly gather for canapés and drinks before heading to dinner in the dining room which runs adjacent to the kitchen and where guests can ogle at the most massive aga cooker imaginable.

I recently attended one of LondonFoodie’s Japanese Supper Clubs which kicked off with a South American styled salmon sashimi accompanied by a wasabi flavoured sour cream, shallot chips, chives and a Japanese vinaigrette. The salmon was beautifully fresh, the cream and chips added a lovely creamy and crunchy textural contrast, and the vinaigrette provided a nice acidic zing to the dish.

Salmon sashimi

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I loved the décor at The Refinery Bar with its elegant industrial take on urban dining. Its use of floor to ceiling glass windows has also helped to create an airy, light and gracious space, and its use of colour and texture added to its comfort. The Refinery Bar is a visually arresting restaurant. Situated on Southwark Street right behind the Tate Modern, it is well positioned to service museum goers.

The Refinery

The menu is varied with a selection of plates for sharing, nibbles, sandwiches, burgers, mains and steaks. There is also a large selection of cocktails to choose from, including a variety of Bloody Mary type cocktails. I went for the Crystal Mary martini (£7.95) which was so fiery from the Tabasco that I found it too harsh on my palate. But this was made good with an excellent Russian rose martini (£6.95). The drink was well balanced and smooth which helped it go down a treat. Also impressive was the large selection of wines on the drinks menu that you could order by the glass and in varying measures.

Crystal Mary martini

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Hawksmoor Spitalfields Restaurant and Bar was the original Hawksmoor, the hugely popular steak restaurant that paved the way for the other Hawksmoor branches in Seven Dials Covent Garden and Guildhall. My first visit to the Hawksmoor at Spitalfields proved to be a good, if slightly inconsistent experience. But when I tried the fabulous lobster roll at the Seven Dials branch, I became a fan of the Hawksmoor brand.

The Spitalfields branch recently launched a bar extension in its basement with 60 covers. Its focus is the bar (rather than food as is case with the restaurant upstairs) and it offers a selection of carefully selected cocktails, some of which date back to the original 2006 Hawksmoor cocktail list. The bar suits the Spitalfields area. It’s cool and chilled, and relies on the use of reclaimed materials to give it a slightly grungy look. There is also a bar menu which is quite distinct to the upstairs dining menu, with more snack-type eats to complement the drinks in the bar. It features a compilation of sandwiches, and more importantly, includes a lobster roll (£15). One cannot order from the main restaurant menu in the bar or vice versa.

It may seem funny that the item I enjoyed the most at a steak restaurant was their lobster, but the one I had at The Hawksmoor Seven Dials was truly glorious. The portion of juicy, tasty lobster was generous, and it was served on a brioche bread roll that was to die for. Finally it had been dressed with an decadent quantity of unctuous butter which turned this into something incredibly satisfying and addictive. Yum. Anyway, the one at Hawksmoor Spitalfields bar.was decent, but a little dry. Also, the brioche wasn’t quite to the standard set by Seven Dials. It only cost £15 rather than the £25 at Seven Dials, but it was also a smaller portion.

Lobster roll

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In December 2011 Chef Morgan Meunier moved his self-named restaurant Morgan M from its long standing Islington base to Barbican. I really enjoyed the food at Morgan M during my past visits (for my previous Morgan M post, click here). But I did find the trek to the outer reaches of Islington (given its distance from the tube) a little awkward. This move to Barbican seems ideal for making the restaurant more accessible.

The décor is pleasant and safe, but perhaps not as modern and slinky looking as one might expect from a Barbican/Farringdon location. The format of the menu has not changed, and I was happy to see that Morgan had kept hold of his £52 five course tasting menu. It was rather good value when you considered the quality of the cooking, the number of dishes and the fact that you could choose from two alternate dishes for each of the starter, main and dessert courses. And of course, there are the usual à la carte options for the picking.

For spring, the tasting menu kicked off with a warm tomato soup with purple basil and a tomato and olive oil sorbet which was lovely and refreshing. The icy sorbet provided a nice zingy contrast to the soup and promised a tantalising start to spring.

Warm tomato soup

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A month ago, I attended a very successful lamb butchery masterclass at The Chop House. Its neighbouring restaurant Cantina de Ponte pasta masterclasses are run on select Saturdays throughout the year with each class covering different types of pastas. I attended the class last week which touched on tagliatelle, taglioni, orecchiette and ravioli.

Pasta Masterclass

The class included a basic pasta demo on how to make pasta dough and how to roll the different types of pasta (and in the case of the orecchiette, how to cut and shape it). We all got a chance to try our hand at making pasta dough and some members of the class got to participate in rolling the pasta. All this was great fun, but I would have liked the class to have covered some sauces as well, after all, a good sauce is what makes a pasta dish great.

Tagliatelle & ravioli

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Soif is owned by the same group who own Terroirs. When I visited Terroirs in 2009 shortly after it opened, I thought it to be one of the most exciting wine bar and restaurants to grace the London stage. Well priced, heartfelt, rustic French cooking in an atmospheric central London location – what could be better? The offerings of ‘natural’ wines at decent prices worked a charm too. The wine bar and restaurant was obviously so successful that it spawned a second, Brawn in East London, and then the third, Soif in South London.

Like Terroirs, Soif offers a reasonable range of tasting portions for sharing and main sized meals, as well as a selection of ‘natural’ wines. We started with the charcuterie platter (£12.50) of pork terrine, rillette and Toscana salami. I loved, loved, loved the rillette at Terroirs and so this was the part of the platter that I was looking forward to the most. Instead I found the version at Soif to be overly fatty and not particularly enjoyable with a disproportionately high ratio of fat to meat. The terrine on the other hand was meaty and flavoursome. The salami was also good.

Charcuterie selection

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L’Autre Pied is the little sister restaurant to Pied à Terre on Charlotte Street. Opening in 2007 under Marcus Eaves, it went on to win critical acclaim as well as a Michelin star in 2009. When Shane Osborne left Pied à Terre last year, Marcus took over the head chef spot at Pied à Terre. I adored the food at L’Autre Pied when Eaves was there, having eaten there on several occasions. His cooking was top notch, and the pricing was very reasonable for the standard of his cooking. His one-Michelin star was well deserved.

But his departure has paved the way for some new blood. Enter Andy McFadden who previously worked at three-Michelin-starred Oud Sluis in the Netherlands and under Osborne at Pied à Terre for four years. A new head chef may mean a new approach, but the restaurant has managed to hold onto the contemporary and relaxed style that has always made L’Autre Pied one of the most accessible fine-dining establishments in London.

We kicked off with an amuse bouche of pumpkin and ginger mousse which was wonderfully light and tasty. But the topping of black olive, sesame seeds and chives was probably a little heavy against the delicacy of the mousse.

Pumpkin and ginger mouse

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Pizarro has been receiving all the same rave reviews that its sister restaurant José also collected when it first opened. But one of the things that make Pizarro more appealing than José is that it is bigger, a huge bonus when both restaurants do not have a booking policy and happen to be two of the most sort after tables in London at the moment. I still imagine there could be long waits, but we turned up around 6.30pm on a Saturday night and managed to nab a spot straight away.

The dining room spells T-R-E-N-D-Y. It feels more formal and less raw than José, but it still follows the bar-seating-around-the-open-kitchen formula of its sister. We sat right near the pass during our visit which meant we got to see José at work. The menu is small, and it has less of a tapas-focus than at José and more main course selections (five).

As we decided on what to order, we were presented with some veggie nibbles of radish and cauliflower dressed with olive oil and cava vinegar. These are worth a mention as they were lovely with a hint of delicate acidic sweetness.

Veg dressed with olive oil & cava vinegar

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