Reviews

No fly-by-night eaterie: Brawn's airy pair of rooms feature high-ceilings, white-painted brick, plain-wood tables and groovy artwork

Brawn, 49 Columbia Road, London E2,

It's on the site of a flower market, but there's nothing fleeting about the beauty of the food at newcomer Brawn

Inside Reviews

Barbecoa, 20 New Change Passage, London, EC4M 9AG

Saturday, 18 December 2010

Before the TV shows, the bestselling books, the school-food campaigns and the browbeating of obese Americans, Jamie Oliver's approach to cooking was that of an experienced brickie – grab this brick, mix this cement, trowel the cement on here, plonk the mixture down there and bish, bosh, zing, zing, hey presto it's done. He convinced the nation that simplicity, rather than complexity, could deliver big flavours. Through the unveiling of his 15 restaurant, and his immensely popular Jamie's Italian chain, he has kept faith with the basic, the tasty, the honest-to-God. Devotees will be relieved to hear that his newest incarnation mostly maintains the tradition, at least when it comes to food. If only everything else about it were so simple.

Assaggi, 39 Chepstow Place, London W2

Sunday, 12 December 2010

In an unlikely room above a London pub is an Italian so authentic you need to be a native to read the menu

The Savoy Grill, The Strand, London, WC2

Saturday, 11 December 2010

To any Gordon Ramsay watchers who have gathered around this page hoping to witness another disaster: move on – there's nothing to see here. Sure, with Ramsay's family life and business empire in crisis and his most recent restaurant, Petrus, opening to hostile reviews, there was more than a chance that his latest venture could have been a car crash. Instead, the grand old Savoy Grill glides sedately out from under the dust sheets with the well-tuned purr of a vintage Rolls-Royce.

Mya Lacarte 5 Prospect Street, Caversham, Reading, Berkshire

Sunday, 5 December 2010

Has this 'Apprentice' winner picked up enough of Lord Sugar's nous to turn a bad pun into a boardroom hit?

Holbeck Ghyll Hotel, Holbeck Lane, Windermere, Cumbria

Saturday, 4 December 2010

Built as a rich man's folly – it was the Earl of Lonsdale's hunting lodge in the 1880s – Holbeck Ghyll is a gorgeous country house hotel with a stupendous view over Lake Windermere. Across the glassily calm lake stand the Langdales Pikes and, beyond them, the snow-capped peaks of the Cumbrian mountains to the north-west. Inside, it's like a dream of posh, Country Living-mag rusticity, from the blazing log fire and the Parker Knoll chairs in the lobby to the woven Bergerac furniture and the biographies of Tory politicians in the sitting-room. They bring you a dry martini and a leather-clad menu as you sit in the window seat thinking a) this is ridiculously old-fashioned, and b) this is sooooo blissful.

Indian Veg 92-93 Chapel Market, London N1

Sunday, 28 November 2010

Ethics are shoved down your throat at Indian Veg. But there's still plenty of room for the all-you-can-eat buffet

Hawksmoor Seven Dials, 11 Langley Street, London WC2

Saturday, 27 November 2010

As if it wasn't already hard enough to keep up, in today's Fifty-Things-To-Do-Before culture, a new pressure has emerged. Now you don't just need to own this season's must-have bag – you must also have tried the latest must-eat restaurant dish.

Les Deux Salons, 40-42 William IV Street, London, WC2

Sunday, 21 November 2010

The word is out. Which means you'll have a fight on your hands if you want to get a seat at Les Deux Salons

Cigalon, 115 Chancery Lane, London WC2

Saturday, 20 November 2010

Cigalon means cricket, of course, the Mediterranean version rather than the Aggers-and-Blowers one (or, come to that, the "French-cricket" kind). And the owners have gone out of their way to conjure a sense of being in a setting that might involve some Continental chirping in the shrubbery. What used to be the site of Hodgson's Wine Bar, in the heart of London's law courts, has been transformed into a small Provençal paradise.