The best places to eat in 2007

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10 April 2012

The opening of new restaurants in any year is like the Grand National. A few fall at the fences, some prove steady goers over the course and towards the end of the year there is neck-and-neck acceleration with restaurateurs whipping their builders to get open in time for the finishing line.

The past couple of months has seen a frenzy of notable debuts, with Alain Ducasse at The Dorchester taking first prize for snubbing a predicted recession with a £115 per person tasting menu. But this year has not all been fancy food at fanciful prices. Read on.

A ROOM OF ONE'S OWN

Virginia Woolf understood that money and a room of one's own was essential for poetic licence and the personal liberty to create art. She could have been thinking of chefs. After starting working life at 16 as a pâtissier in his home town of Kanagawa, Tomanari Chiba spent nine years working and travelling for Nobuyuki Matsuhisa, aka Nobu.

Dinings, his own tiny izakaya, is not only considerably cheaper than Nobu but, in my view, infinitely more beguiling.

At the tender age of 26, Marcus Eaves has been backed by his mentor Shane Osborn of Pied à Terre in l'Autre Pied, where he is co-owner and sharer of a cooking style that the Michelin guide invariably laps up but some find prissy. Losing the tendency to whiz garnishes into nancy little purées would be a start towards making his mark more forcefully.

Thierry Tomasin who spent 15 years as sommelier and front-of-house at Le Gavroche and Aubergine achieved his lifetime's ambition in August this year when he opened Angelus, his "upmarket, chic French brasserie". A listed former pub round the corner from Hyde Park Stables was perhaps not a part of the original dream but Tomasin's irrepressible enthusiasm overcomes the oddness.

Tom Ilic had to become inured to disappointment in his quest to have a restaurant with his name above the door, but finally he has triumphed. Battersea and Clapham are fortunate to have a cook of his calibre and dexterity keen to provide all that is wanted - and more - from a neighbourhood restaurant.

SIT UP AND EAT PROPERLY

Annual round-ups always look for positive trends. Knowing that it is sensible to buy carefully nurtured produce, eat seasonally, shop locally, employ and enjoy every bit of an animal, not just the quickly-prepared prime cuts, and cook them instinctively and imaginatively is not the same as having the time and skills to do it. Fortunately a new sort of quintessentially British domestic restaurant has flourished this year. The first to open was Magdalen, where James Faulks is an alumnus of The Anchor & Hope, the gastropub which was a disciple of St John.

In the spring, Great Queen Street with an ever closer link - that of sibling - to Anchor & Hope brought uniquely tempting eating to Covent Garden. A tersely written menu in a barely decorated dining room evolves constantly and never fails to delight.

Tom Pemberton, previously head chef at St John Bread and Wine, brought the greedy-yet-wholesome, responsive style of food to Notting Hill Gate at Hereford Road. The atmosphere is slightly boarding school, his cooking is anything but.

Chefs of a certain age regard Rowley Leigh with awe. To abandon academia, do time at The Rock Garden and Joe Allen, train to cook classically with the Roux brothers, ending up as head chef at Le Poulbot, put in 20 uproarious years at Kensington Place and then, at the age of 57, open a 170-seater restaurant where he is hands-on in the kitchen is a phenomenon. Le Café Anglais has a menu reflecting not just long experience but reading, travel and a knife-sharp intellect.

MAKING MOVES

As I write this, global warming seems a fond hope, but my prediction for this year is that restaurant-goers will start to gravitate towards cold-weather food. The flamboyant Catholicism of southern Europe will be rejected in favour of the sterner Protestant north.

The ambitious restaurant Texture fits neatly - and invitingly - into my theory. Chef Agnar Sverisson comes from Iceland. His move to London is via Le Manoir aux'Quat Saisons, where he met his business partner ace sommelier Xavier Rousset. The tenderness of Skagafjordur lamb served with barley broth is one memorable texture.

Claude and Claire Bosi have moved their restaurant Hibiscus from Ludlow to London. Should you be interested in another of my theories, I think the sort of special-occasion eating that happens in the country is more sympathetic to the off-the-wall combinations of ingredients that Bosi favours.

Occasionally his ideas work out wonderfully, but sometimes they just seem like they are striving for novelty. Londoners who eat out all the time don't need the likes of lamb sweetmeats (bollocks) with a tartare of native oysters, sweetcorn and Thai curry plus a watercress salad.

Alain Ducasse never stops moving, flying around the world visiting his 27 restaurants or however many there are. Alain Ducasse at The Dorchester is his latest venture into London. Although the cost of a meal is probably less than at Alain Ducasse at Plaza Athénée in Paris or Le Louis XV in Monte Carlo, it seems too much for food that is safe rather than thrilling, service that is plentiful rather than adroit, and décor that is expensive rather than stylish. For hedge fund managers whose enjoyment expands with the bill, the wine list is just the ticket.

Rag-trade tycoon Richard Caring is changing the face of London restaurants as chefs in the groups he buys up move out. Alberico Penati has left Harry's Bar, where the food was always more interesting than the customers, to run Alberico at Aspinall's, a restaurant open to the public in a gaming club.

LOCAL HEROES

A wood-fired oven that was at the heart of La Spighetta in Marylebone remains the driving force of Giusto, which has replaced it. Foccacia and pizzas, including a splendid white pizza, emerge but so do dishes of the day such as suckling pig. One of the new team apparently worked at Cipriani. From the general attitude of friendliness and enthusiasm you would never had guessed it.

Sardinian seafood is the unique selling point of Olivomare in Belgravia, in the same ownership as Olivo and Oliveto. Pristine white décor is almost matched by scrupulous cooking but the snooty attitude of the young staff militates against total satisfaction.

When a great site that was squandered on a poor operation is rescued, there is rejoicing among restaurant critics. The team behind Northbank by the Thames - with a view dictated by the Millennium Bridge across the river to Tate Modern and Shakespeare's Globe - have installed a satisfying West Country menu and an understanding of a good time. This might include sitting on the heated private terrace wrapped in the warm woolly blankets provided.

Marco Pierre White showed us a new face when he took over the reins in Hell's Kitchen. He then opened his restaurant Marco at Stamford Bridge to offer some of the dishes that made him famous - prepared by loyal lieutenants Matthew Brown and Roger Pizey. On match days there are blokey dishes such as fish and chips with mushy peas. On other occasions try his parfait de foie gras en gelée de truffe and the braised pig's trotter aux morilles avec pomme mousseline.

WEST END WIZARDRY

My Restaurant of the Year last year was Arbutus. Owners Anthony Demetre (chef) and Will Smith (sommelier) have neatly addressed what would have been my one criticism of their Soho establishment - lack of comfort - in opening Wild Honey. What was previously Drones Club has the wood panelling, soft banquettes and private corners you expect from a club and relish in a restaurant. The food is as good as you might anticipate, although too much reliance on sous-vide technique sometimes shows through.

Giorgio Locatelli would make an unlikely midwife but he can be cast in that role for Ristorante Semplice just off Bond Street, where chef Marco Torri and manger Giovanni Baldino are both Locanda Locatelli old boys. Although the restaurant name means Simplicity, a lot of hard grind, attention to detail, importing of ingredients and a glittery interior have gone into achieving the effect. It is the restaurant I chose for what I call my office party (a jolly good Christmas time lunch) this year.

A TRIP TO THE ORIENT

My contention this year that Malaysian food was the new black was somewhat set back by the opening of Suka at The Sanderson hotel with its ridiculous prices and witless service. Much stronger proof is offered by Kiasu in soon-to-be fashionable Queensway where, for more or less the price of one of the starters at Suka, you can eat a diverting meal based on Malaysian noodle and rice assemblies.

Humphrey Lee, a long-time manager at Mandarin Kitchen in Queensway, is one of the owners of Pearl Liang in Paddington Central, an unusual Chinese restaurant in that both the dim sum and the main-menu Cantonese cooking are of the same high quality. Seductively swish surroundings are happily out of line with the modest pricing. A dim sum of frilly ox tripe and chilli which I ate last week is my dim sum of the year.

DESIGNS ON OUR FOOD

Alan Yau would rather wait than get things wrong. The Russian-owned Japanese restaurant Sake No Hana was intended to open in February but only just scraped into 2007 and, as yet, is offering only dinner. Tussling with the constraints of a listed building which defeated two other catering operations, Yau has gloriously succeeded. Architect Kengo Kuma has installed an enchanted geometric forest of bamboo and wood.

Food is fascinating and reasonably priced. It is the champagne, cognac, shochu and sake that send the bill spiralling skywards.

At this end of this year we need to look hard for grounds for optimism. The Festival of Britain in 1951 strove to find them and one that now could be claimed is the creation of the new restaurant Skylon in the Festival Hall. A female head chef in the shape of Helena Puolakka, a commitment to seasonal food, design classics on the table from David Mellor and Nick Munro, an outlook that wholeheartedly embraces the river, an easygoing attitude that allows eating until 1am; it is something.

Dinings, 22 Harcourt Street, W1 (020 7723 0666) £40
L'Autre Pied, 5-7 Blandford Street, W1 (020 7486 9696) £60
Angelus, 4 Bathurst Street, WC2 (020 7402 0083) £50
Tom Ilic, 123 Queenstown Road, SW8 (020 7622 0555) £40
Magdalen, 152 Tooley Street, SE1 (020 7403 1342) £40
Great Queen Street, 32 Great Queen Street, WC2 (020 7242 0622) £35
Le Café Anglais, 8 Porchester Gardens, W2 (020 7221 1415) £55
Texture, 34 Portman Square, W1 (020 7224 0028) £80
Hibiscus, 29 Maddox Street, W1 (020 7629 2999) £75
Alain Ducasse at The Dorchester, Park Lane, W1 (020 7629 8866) £120
Alberico at Aspinall's, 27-28 Curzon Street, W1 (020 7499 4927) £85
Giusto, 43 Blandford Street, W1 (020 7486 7340) £36
Olivomare, 10 Lower Belgrave Street, SW1 (020 7730 9022) £50
Northbank, 1 Paul's Walk, EC4 (020 7329 9299) £50
Marco, Stamford Bridge, Fulham Road, SW6 (020 7915 2929) £64
Wild Honey, 12 St George Street, W1 (020 7758 9160) £50
Ristorante Semplice, 10 Blenheim Street, W1 (020 7495 1509) £45
Kiasu, 48 Queensway, W2 (020 7727 8810) £25
Pearl Liang, 8 Sheldon Square, Paddington Central, W2 (020 7289 7000) £35
Sake No Hana, 23 St James's Street, SW1 (020 7925 8988) £65
Skylon, Southbank Centre, Belvedere Road, SE1 (020 7654 7800) £60

Prices above estimate a meal with wine for one.

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